Where once stood the mosque of the Arabs

Palermo  (gro) Palermo Cathedral, on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, rises on the spot where once stood one of the more than 100 mosques built in Arab times. It was Aghlabids from North Africa who conquered Sicily in the 9th century and wrested it from the Byzantine Empire.  On what is now  Cathedral Square originally stood, from about the 6th century, a Christian church, a Roman basilica. It was it that  300 years later was turned into a mosque by the Muslims . The mosque, in turn,  was demolished by the Normans who took the island  170 years later. The new, powerful cathedral was built from 1170 in 15 years and consecrated in 1185.  Since then, it has been rebuilt several times, especially in the interior. The building looks most original with its rounded battlements  from the east. To the right and left, the original, Arab-Norman  structure is flanked by  slender towers in the style of Catalan Gothic, which were built in the 16th century. 

The Arab builders were allowed to stay.

The cathedral is a typical example of the diversity of cultural currents that have affected Palermo.  With its massive but elegantly decorated masonry of the apse, the structure  is a magnificent testimony of the Norman-Arab architectural style found only in Sicily. Some things, however, are out of place. For example, the huge baroque dome, which was added centuries later, really has no place on the original flat building. It disturbs the oriental character of the building, which the Normans had built by Arab architects and craftsmen. The Arab specialists were  not expelled by the Normans. The new masters were only too happy to make use of their skills.

Like a city from the oriental fairyland.

To the rough northern men, whose ancestors came from today’s Scandinavia, the Arabian Palermo must have seemed like a fairy-tale city from 1001 Nights, as can be read in traditional accounts. Never before had they seen a large city with so many gardens and magnificent buildings, with baths and hunting and pleasure palaces. The Arabs had transformed the Conca d’Oro, the Golden Shell, with irrigation systems and plantings into a blooming citrus,  mandarin  and orange garden. And in the  alleys of the city, it still smells beguilingly of jasmine in many corners and niches.