Frommer's Review
If too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the broth, then too many architects turned Palermo's cathedral into a hodgepodge of styles. It is still a striking building, however, and well worth an hour or more of your time. Regrettably, the various styles -- Greek-Roman, Norman, Arabic, Islamic -- were not blended successfully with the overriding baroque overlay.
In 1184, during the Norman reign, the archbishop of Palermo, Gualtiero Offamiglio, launched the cathedral on the site of a Muslim mosque, which had been built over an early Christian basilica. Offamiglio was green with envy at the supremacy of the cathedral of Monreale. As the Palermo Duomo took shape, it became an architectural battleground for what was known as "The Battle of the Two Cathedrals."
Today, the facade is closed between two soaring towers with double lancet windows. The middle portal, dating from the 15th century, is enhanced by a double lancet with the Aragonese coat of arms. The four impressive campaniles (bell towers), date from the 14th century, the south and north porches from the 15th and 16th centuries.
But if anyone could be called the culprit for the cathedral's playground of styles, it is the Neapolitan architect Ferdinando Fuga, who went with the mood of his day and in 1771 and 1809 gave both the exterior and the interior of the Duomo a sweeping neoclassical style. In retrospect, he should have left well enough alone. The only section that the restorers didn't touch was the apses, which still retain their impressive geometric decoration.
The Duomo is also a pantheon of royalty. As you enter, the first chapel on the right contains six of the edifice's most impressive tombs, including that of Roger II, the first king of Sicily, who died in 1154. He was crowned in the Duomo in 1130. His daughter Constance, who died in 1198, is buried here along with her husband, Henry VI, who died the year before. Henry VI was emperor of Germany and the son of Frederick Barbarossa. Their son, another emperor of Germany and king of Sicily, Frederick II, was also buried here in 1250, as was his wife, Constance of Aragón, who died in 1222. The last royal burial here, Peter II, king of Sicily, was in 1342.
Accessed from the south transept, the Tesoro, or treasury, is a repository of rich vestments, silverware, chalices, holy vessels, altar cloths, and ivory engravings of Sicilian art of the 17th century. An oddity here is the bejeweled caplike crown of Constance of Aragón, designed by local craftsmen in the 12th century, and removed from her head when the tomb was opened in the 18th century. Other precious objects removed from the royal tombs are also on display here.
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