London/Palermo (gro) The most beautiful church in Italy is not in Rome, Milan or Florence, but in Palermo. It is the Cappella Palatina in the Palazzo Reale of the island metropolis, the 12th-century Arab-Norman royal palace that today houses the parliament of the Sicily region. This is according to an international survey conducted by the “Daily Telegraph“. The London mass paper, in its search for the 23 most beautiful churches in the world, also determined that the Cappella Palatina was ranked 14th, one place ahead of the enchanting, high Gothic Sainte-Chapelle of Paris. The Cappella Palatina is the only church in Italy to have made it into the 23 most beautiful churches in the world. Contributed to this, it is believed, that Palermo with its Arab-Norman buildings, together with the cathedrals and monastic buildings in Monreale and Cefalù, was given special protection by UNESCO in 2015 as a World Heritage Site.
What remains are the “paradisiacal gardens”.
Completed in 1143, the church in the middle of the palace was intended as a church of the royal family of the Normans. The Normans were the ones who had driven the then called Saracens out of Sicily. In fact, only the thin but powerful upper class of the Arab population had been chased away. What remained were the majority of artists, craftsmen, doctors and scientists. And preserved were the “paradisiacal gardens of the island” created by the Arabs, the mandarin, lemon and orange plantations as well as the wide-stretched grounds of almond trees, as contemporaries reported (even if the mosques of Sicily were destroyed aunahmslos).
Finally the appreciation by UNESCO.
The conquerors of the 10th century, invading Sicily from French Normandy, left in the country the Arab population that had mixed with Greek and Roman colonizers in the centuries before. Above all, the agricultural horticulture, architecture and building art of the Arabs was of interest, and together with artists from Byzantium (Eastern Rome), architectural and craftsmanship overwhelming works were created, especially in Western Sicily, which now finally receive their appreciation through the World Heritage Protection of UNESCO.