ART JOURNEY: The Palatin Chapel of Palermo - Italy

ART JOURNEY: The Palatin Chapel of Palermo – Italy 

By Jorge Jefferds August 18, 2015 

The Palatine Chapel is the royal chapel of the Norman kings of Sicily situated on the ground floor at the center of the Palazzo Reale in Palermo, southern Italy.

Also referred to as a Palace church or Palace chapel, it was commissioned by Roger II of Sicily in 1132 to be built upon an older chapel (now the crypt) constructed around 1080. It took eight years to build, receiving a royal charter the same year, with the mosaics being only partially finished by 1143. The sanctuary, dedicated to Saint Peter, is reminiscent of a domed basilica. It has three apses, as is usual in Byzantine architecture, with six pointed arches (three on each side of the central nave) resting on recycled classical columns.

The Ceiling

Certainly, it bears the year 1143 inscription on the base of the dome, which sets a coeval date to the mosaics on the presbytery. As proved by the stylistic analysis, the mosaics that were left in the naves are contemporary to the kingdom of William I.

It is the highest example, from an historic and artistic point of view, of the coexistence between cultures, religions and ways of thinking apparently irreconcilable. Byzantine, Muslim and Latin handcraft masters were involved by the wisely managed power of Roger II.  The Chapel arose to synthesize the liturgical needs of both the Latin and Greek rituals. Proof of this is the Latin plant divided in three naves and the presbytery (byzantine), surmounted by a dome, made exactly according to the most classic byzantine codes.

The Dome

Interesting is the repetition of this element in the basin of the central apse, where it has a communicative and mercifully effect to whom enters the church. Among the ancient mosaics outstanding is the baptism of Christ, stupendous work with the stylization of the waves.

Images of Saints and Fathers of the Church are present on the pillars and on the soffits of the arches.

On the side naves, decorated under the kingdom of William I are narrated episodes of the lives of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and in the central nave the events of the Old Testament. The marble chandelier holds the Easter candle, leaning on the ambo, an elegant sculpture made probably by artists with ties to North of Italy.

The Baptism of the Christ Close-up

The Arab handcraft masters manufactured the vault in muqarnas (the Arabic word for stalactite vault) that dominate the central nave, a unique example in the whole world of pictorial Islamic decorations with human representations inside a worship place. A structure entirely fabricated in wood, wisely elaborated in sections united by insertions, with stalactite and concave elements, that remind us of a cave.  There is an inscription in Latin, Greek and Arab from 1142, in memory of the hydraulic watch made by Roger II. It is testimony of the fusion of cultures in Norman Palermo.

Muqarna Ceiling Depicted in Arabic Style

This inscription is located in the Maqueda Courtyard on the left side wall before entering the Chapel in direction to the stairs that conduct us to the Fountain Courtyard and its byzantine translated version “Oh new wonder! The strong Sir Roger having had the scepter from God, stop the course of the fluid substance, distributing cognition free of error from the hours of time— In the month of March fifth call and of our health the year 1142, and of his happy kingdom the year XIII.”

The mosaics on the frontage at the entrance where performed during the beginning of the XIX century by Santi Cardini and Pietro Casamassima and represent the events of the life of Assalon, rebel son of King David. This cycle was realized by will of Ferdinand III of Bourbon (present along with his wife Maria Carolina in the medallion on the mosaic with the Genius of Palermo crowned).