Palermo (gro) Palermo with its Norman-Arabic style buildings (in our picture the garden of San Giovanni degli Eremiti) as well as the cathedrals of Cefalu and Monreale are to be raised by the Unesco to the World Heritage Site . This announced at the beginning of the week Giovanni Puglisi. The cultural sites of western Sicily, said the president of the Italian Unesco Commission, are unique testimonies of how different cultures and religions could be united under one roof unfolding the splendor of a new overall cultural achievement.
Just in time for the opening of Expo 2015.
The World Heritage Site elevation is expected to take place in 2015, in time for the opening of Expo 2015, which will be held next year in Milan from May to late October. Palermo and western Sicily, Puglisi said, wants to open its doors as a World Heritage Site to visitors to the World’s Fair and encourage them to visit not only northern Italy and Rome, but also the deep south of the host country.
Not only for history, but also for the future.
An elevation of the cultural heritage of Western Sicily to World Heritage Site means not only the appreciation of traditions, but also contains a hopeful impulse directed to the future : that it is possible, meaningful and fruitful to unite the most diverse cultural currents into a new whole. This impulse, he said, is of particular weight in today’s times, which are marked by the misfortune caused by the clash of worldviews.
World Heritage Champion.
Uniqueness, authenticity and integrity are the criteria by which the United Nations, through its Unesco, places special natural wonders, landscapes , structural ensembles and individual buildings of the world on its list. Italy is with 41 such cultural sites numerically absolute leader.