Palermo.
Palermo, encircled by mountains and the sea, is a
city steeped in history. The earliest inhabited nucleus
(the Palaeopolis) was situated in the strip of land
bounded to the S by the River Kemonia and to the N
by the Papireto. This is where the Phoenicians arrived
in the 8th c. BC and set up a trading station. In
480 BC Palermo, together with Carthage, fought in
the epic Battle of Himera, which saw the Phoenicians
and the Greeks of Sicily pitched one against the other.
As is known, the Greeks were victorious. In the First
Punic War, Palermo was one of the most important strategic
points in the Carthaginian defences, and it took an
active part against the Romans, who however finally
defeated the city in 251 BC. After the Barbarian invasions
Sicily and Palermo became part of the Byzantine Empire
and went through a long period of decline. The Arabs
arrived in 831 and from then on, throughout the period
of Muslim domination, Palermo once again played its
part as a capital city, becoming one of the most important
economic and cultural centres in Sicily. After the
Norman conquest in 1072, Palermo maintained its role
as a hegemonic city; it was enriched with new quarters
and monuments, and in 1130, when Roger II was made
King of Sicily, it became the prosperous capital of
the Norman Kingdom, resplendent with palaces and luxuriant
gardens. In the Palaeopolis the Norman sovereigns
built their palace where, on the orders of Roger II,
the splendid jewel of the Palace Chapel was created.
After the Normans, power passed to Frederick II of
Swabia, whose court saw the development of an extremely
refined school of poetry and science which attracted
to it the most talented personalities of the age.
In the 13th and 14th c. the Angevins were followed
by the Aragonese. With the victory of the Aragonese,
after the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282-1302),
the great feudal families of Sicily - including the
Chiaromontes and the Sclafanis - began to establish
their hegemony. In the 15th and 16th c., at the height
of the Spanish Age, Palermo became - thanks to its
position - a strategic point of particular interest
in the struggles against the Turks, with the result
that its military role was accentuated. A massive
boundary wall surrounding the entire city was designed
in 1536 by Antonio Ferramolino, and eventually constructed.
In the 17th c., baroque age, Palermo went through
a period of extraordinary splendour. The considerable
building activity noticeably changed the appearance
of the town. The municipality and the religious orders
vied with each other in the construction of palaces,
churches and convents, and architects, sculptors and
stuccoers were called in from far afield. In the 18th
c., after the brief Savoy and Austrian dominations,
Sicily passed to the Bourbons. In the wake of the
new ideas of the Enlightenment, numerous buildings
of public and social importance were erected, e.g.
the Royal Library, the Astronomical Observatory, and
the Cemetery. A new crossroads was created in 1778
by the Praetor Regalmici in the extension of Via Maqueda.
I Quattro Canti di Campagna (the "Country Crossroads")
marked the beginning of the city's expansion north-wards.
Further expansion occurred after the unification of
Italy, when the elegant mansions of the nobility and
the financial and entrepreneurial haute bourgeoisie
began to line the long thoroughfare of Via Libertà.
Via Roma was opened up between 1885 and 1895, at the
expense of a considerable part of the old city and
numerous buildings dating from l6th c. and baroque
Palermo. The Second World War profoundly transformed
Palermo's social and urban equilibrium: part of the
old city suffered severe bomb damage and was abandoned
by its inhabitants, who moved out to the new building
estates. In recent years attempts have been made to
revitalize the old historical centre in order to reveal
the cultural richness of the city in its various stratifications,
so that the inhabitants can once again rediscover
their history and identity.
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