One of the extraordinary things about visiting Sicily is the rich medley of diverse influences that make up its heritage: Roman; Byzantine; Norman; Baroque; and, perhaps most remarkable of all, Arab. For Sicily in the 9th to 11th centuries was ruled by Saracens, who for 120 years controlled the whole island, the Emirate of Sicily. Under Arab rule, Palermo became one of the great Muslim cities of the Mediterranean region, vying with Cordoba and Cairo. It was the second-largest city in Europe, after Cordoba, in Spain. At that time the two biggest cities in Europe were both Muslim. It is said that Palermo boasted some 300 mosques. The mosques are gone, and the Muslims there now are recent arrivals. But the older Arab influence is still discernible, for example in the cooking, in which couscous is a staple. And it can be seen in the architecture of buildings commissioned by Christian rulers in the century or so after the end of Muslim rule, who admired the Arab culture they found there.
Arab rule in Sicily was brought to an end by a Norman conquest in the 1060s and 1070s, which returned the island to Christian control. But the Muslim presence remained for more than a century under Norman rule, and continued to exert a powerful influence on the island. The Normans adopted a policy of religious tolerance, allowing eastern-rite Christians, Muslims and Jews to practice their faith alongside the western, Roman variant of Christianity that they themselves professed. For a few decades, Sicily was a remarkable multi-ethnic, multi-faith land. The interaction of its different peoples spawned a unique architectural and artistic style known as Norman-Arab, combining Norman, Arab and Byzantine flavours.
The Arab influence is evident in many medieval buildings in Palermo. The exterior of the 12th Century church of St John of the Hermits, close by the Palazzo dei Normanni, with its ochre domes looks thoroughly middle-eastern, although the arches in the interior are unmistakably Norman. The austere little church of San Cataldo, on the central Piazza Bellini, is also topped by trademark Saracen domes.
I was particularly struck by the former royal palace of La Zisa, now situated a short distance from the city centre, but in its day the centre of a park outside the city. The very name of the palace is derived from the Arabic, al aziz, ‘magnificent’. The interior decoration includes typically Arab features, with ornately carved niches familiar in Islamic architecture in North Africa and Spain. Down the middle of the central hall runs one of the gentle little fountains (not working when I visited) that lend such an ambiance of peacefulness in Arab architecture. Later Baroque flourishes jar a little, but do not destroy the effect, and seem in a way in keeping with the spirit of amalgamation of different styles that is at the heart of Sicily’s heritage. A short distance away is the La Cuba building, as it name implies, a large square edifice, that once formed part of the same park as La Zisa. It is in less good condition, and is open to the sky. But along the top of the walls can be seen the same ornate Arabic stone carving, in another example of the fusion of Norman and Arab styles.
Palermo’s greatest medieval jewel is surely the Palatine Chapel, in the Palazzo dei Normanni. The palace was the seat of the medieval Norman rulers and, much rebuilt, today houses Sicily’s regional government. The chapel itself, once the private chapel of Sicily’s rulers, remains as it was, an exquisite blend of Norman architectural forms, Byzantine frescoes, and typically Islamic motifs. Before the Arab conquest, Sicily had come under the eastern half of the Roman Empire, its strongest links were with Constantinople, many of its people were Greek, and it followed the eastern variant of Christianity. This Byzantine influence remained strong, and the frescoes of the Palatine Chapel are among the finest to be seen. As remarkable are the typically Islamic designs, most notably in the beautifully ornate ceiling which, if not for the crosses incorporated into it, could have adorned an Islamic building in North Africa. Yet with this fusion of diverse influences, the overall effect is harmonious. Another marvellous example of this harmonious fusion is the magnificent cathedral at Monreale, in the hills above Palermo.
Not only did Sicily’s Norman rulers employ Arab architects, but they had Arab poets at their court, and Arab soldiers in their armies. And while the court language was French, they spoke Arabic, and used Arabic as well as Latin, Greek and Hebrew in their communications with their diverse subjects. The royal coronation mantel included an inscription in Arabic. The Arab traveller Ibn Jubair, who visited Sicily a century after the Norman conquest, described the splendour of Palermo, and remarked that there were too many mosques to be counted. He was struck by how well Muslims were treated, that many government officials were Muslim and that they enjoyed the full confidence of the ruler.
On the wall outside the Palatine Chapel is a carved inscription in Latin, Greek and Arabic. Originally, it would have come from a bell tower that once stood outside the chapel. The inscription celebrates a 12-Century water clock that was once there. The La Ziza palace contains an exhibition of medieval artefacts. Among them is a 12th Century plaque commemorating a notable lady, written in Hebrew, Latin, Greek and Arabic.
But sadly this remarkable example of medieval multiculturalism was not destined to survive. Even during the Norman period, many Muslims converted to Christianity, the religion of the rulers, just as many Christians had earlier converted to Islam under Arab rule. Muslims may have been tolerated under the Normans, but their position was always subordinate and dependent on royal protection. Following the end of Norman rule at the end of the 12th Century, Sicily became part of the Holy Roman Empire, and that protection was withdrawn. As the island was torn apart by fighting over the succession at the end of the 12th Century and the first years of the 13th, a Muslim rebellion took control of much its territory. In 1224 the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, having defeated the Muslim rebels, decided to deport them to the Italian mainland, where a Muslim colony survived at Lucera until the end of the century.
As modern Europeans debate the merits or otherwise of globalisation and multiculturalism, and question whether the Christian and secular West can co-exist with Islam, it is worth recalling that these questions are not new, and that a thousand years ago cooperation and synthesis between different cultural traditions fostered things of beauty that continue to attest to the fact that antagonism between diverse cultures is not inevitable. Through tolerance and exchange in medieval Sicily there flowered a unique culture based on respect, sharing and the blending of different traditions. Medieval Sicily was an important junction for interaction and exchange between the Christian and Muslim worlds, and in its way, a kind of beacon. In the marvellous architecture it has bequeathed, it could also serve as an example today.
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