Palermo, encircled by mountains and the sea, is a city steeped in history. The earliest inhabited nucleus (the Palaeopolis) was situated in the strip of land bounded to the S by the River Kemonia and to the N by the Papireto. This is where the Phoenicians arrived in the 8th c. BC and set up a trading station. In 480 BC Palermo, together with Carthage, fought in the epic Battle of Himera, which saw the Phoenicians and the Greeks of Sicily pitched one against the other.

As is known, the Greeks were victorious. In the First Punic War, Palermo was one of the most important strategic points in the Carthaginian defences, and it took an active part against the Romans, who however finally defeated the city in 251 BC. After the Barbarian invasions Sicily and Palermo became part of the Byzantine Empire and went through a long period of decline. The Arabs arrived in 831 and from then on, throughout the period of Muslim domination, Palermo once again played its part as a capital city, becoming one of the most important economic and cultural centres in Sicily.

After the Norman conquest in 1072, Palermo maintained its role as a hegemonic city; it was enriched with new quarters and monuments, and in 1130, when Roger II was made King of Sicily, it became the prosperous capital of the Norman Kingdom, resplendent with palaces and luxuriant gardens. In the Palaeopolis the Norman sovereigns built their palace where, on the orders of Roger II, the splendid jewel of the Palace Chapel was created. After the Normans, power passed to Frederick II of Swabia, whose court saw the development of an extremely refined school of poetry and science which attracted to it the most talented personalities of the age.

In the 13th and 14th c. the Angevins were followed by the Aragonese. With the victory of the Aragonese, after the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282-1302), the great feudal families of Sicily - including the Chiaromontes and the Sclafanis - began to establish their hegemony. In the 15th and 16th c., at the height of the Spanish Age, Palermo became - thanks to its position - a strategic point of particular interest in the struggles against the Turks, with the result that its military role was accentuated. A massive boundary wall surrounding the entire city was designed in 1536 by Antonio Ferramolino, and eventually constructed. In the 17th c., baroque age, Palermo went through a period of extraordinary splendour. The considerable building activity noticeably changed the appearance of the town.

The municipality and the religious orders vied with each other in the construction of palaces, churches and convents, and architects, sculptors and stuccoers were called in from far afield. In the 18th c., after the brief Savoy and Austrian dominations, Sicily passed to the Bourbons. In the wake of the new ideas of the Enlightenment, numerous buildings of public and social importance were erected, e.g. the Royal Library, the Astronomical Observatory, and the Cemetery. A new crossroads was created in 1778 by the Praetor Regalmici in the extension of Via Maqueda.

I Quattro Canti di Campagna (the "Country Crossroads") marked the beginning of the city's expansion north-wards. Further expansion occurred after the unification of Italy, when the elegant mansions of the nobility and the financial and entrepreneurial haute bourgeoisie began to line the long thoroughfare of Via Libertà. Via Roma was opened up between 1885 and 1895, at the expense of a considerable part of the old city and numerous buildings dating from l6th c. and baroque Palermo. The Second World War profoundly transformed Palermo's social and urban equilibrium: part of the old city suffered severe bomb damage and was abandoned by its inhabitants, who moved out to the new building estates. In recent years attempts have been made to revitalize the old historical centre in order to reveal the cultural richness of the city in its various stratifications, so that the inhabitants can once again rediscover their history and identity.
 

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