Palermo

The Palatine Chapel was commissioned by Roger II in 1132 and consecrated in 1140. It is a three-nave basilica in Siculo-Norman style declared a UNESCO heritage site in 2015. Its mosaics in Byzantine gold cover over 6,000 square meters of surface, among the most extensive medieval mosaic cycles in the world. They were created by Byzantine, Arab, and Norman craftsmen who worked side by side. The wooden stalactite ceiling is of Islamic craftsmanship, everything else is Christian. No other building in the world contains these three cultures simultaneously in such an integrated way.

The Palace of the Normans is the oldest royal residence in Europe still in use. It stands at the highest point of the city, where Carthaginians and Romans had already built their defenses. The Arabs built the castle called Qasr in the ninth century. The Normans transformed it into the royal palace of Roger the Second after 1130. Today it hosts the Sicilian Regional Assembly. In the same palace where the Sicilian Parliament meets, the remains of the original Arab structures are visible in the underground chambers.