How Was Palermo Built

Arab-Norman is a real architectural category, not a label. The Normans inherited a working Islamic building industry and used it: pointed arches, squinches and muqarnas vaulting appear in Christian churches, while Greek mosaicists supplied the imagery and Latin patrons set the programme.

The Palatine Chapel is the clearest case. Its walls carry gold-ground Byzantine mosaics; its floor is Islamic-style geometric inlay; its ceiling is a wooden muqarnas honeycomb painted with hunting, drinking and dancing, made by Muslim craftsmen for a Christian king.

San Giovanni degli Eremiti carries five red domes that read as entirely Islamic, and the Zisa and the Castello della Cuba are Norman pleasure palaces built on the plan of an Arab summer residence, with cooling water channels running through the main hall.

The later city is Spanish baroque: the Quattro Canti, where two streets cross in four concave facades of tiered sculpture, and a series of churches whose interiors are lined in marble inlay and stucco. Serpotta’s white stucco figures in the small oratories are the finest of that tradition.