Sicily’s bustling capital city, Palermo has a history that dates back 2,700 years. Founded by the Phoenicians, the city reached its cultural peak during its Arab occupation when Palermo was called the “city of delights” for its beautiful gardens and architecture.
Today, the city is known more for its boisterous street markets than for its cultural attractions, although there are first-class museums and historic churches in Palermo well worth exploring.
The top attraction is the Catacombe dei Cappuccini, an underground maze of open crypts beneath the Capuchin monastery. Some of the 8,000 mummified human remains are extraordinarily well-preserved but creepy.
History
Panormous (from the Greek "all harbor") was founded by the Phoenicians in the 7BC on a site that was already densely populated thanks to its mild climate and fertile soil. In 254 BC it was conquered by the Romans, few traces of whom are to be found in the city. Its golden age began under the Arab rule (9C), when Balarm became one of the main Islamic centers in the West. And, as the city expanded, new districts emerged, such as the Kalsa, a fortified quarter on the sea and the emir's residence.
In 1072, the city fell into the hands of the Normans under Count Roger de Hauteville, who allowed merchants, craftsmen, Muslims, and Jewish populations to freely practie their occupations. This led to the development of a significant Arab-Norman style in art and architecture. In 13BC Palermo was taken over by Frederick II of Swabia (1212). From the 15BC to the 17BC, Sicily was an Aragonese province ruled by a viceroy. Its institutions, culture and customs were modeled after Spain. In 1735, the Spaniards regained power under Charles of Bourdon and Sicily was once again was ruled by a viceroy. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna united the crowns of Naples and Palermo, thus establishing the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which lasted until 1860, when Garibaldi landed in Marsala with his 'Thousand'. And, after a plebiscite, Sicily was annexed to the newly founded Kingdom of Italy.
See also Where to Stay in Palermo
Palermo (Italian: [paˈlɛrmo] ( listen), Sicilian: Palermu, Latin: Panormus, from Greek: Πάνορμος, Panormos, Arabic: بَلَرْم, Balarm; Phoenician: זִיז, Ziz) is a city in Insular Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is located in the northwest of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The city was founded in 734 BC by the Phoenicians as Ziz ('flower'). Palermo then became a possession of Carthage, before becoming part of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and eventually part of the Byzantine Empire, for over a thousand years. The Greeks named the city Panormus meaning 'complete port'. From 831 to 1072 the city was under Arab rule during the Emirate of Sicily when the city first became a capital. The Arabs corrupted the Greek name into Balarm, the root for Palermo's present-day name. Following the Norman reconquest, Palermo became the capital of a new kingdom (from 1130 to 1816), the Kingdom of Sicily and the capital of the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick II Holy Roman Emperor and Conrad IV of Germany, King of the Romans. Eventually Sicily would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860.