Palentine Chapel at Palermo

Sicily

            The Palentine Chapel is the royal chapel of Sicily’s Norman kings and is located in Palermo, Southern Italy. Designed in 1130 by Roger II, the chapel is located on the ground floor of the center of the Palazzo Reale and is a major tourist attraction site in Palermo (Fabbri, 2002). This chapel is also known as the palace chapel or palace church. After designing it, Roger II of Sicily commissioned its construction in 1132 and was built upon an older chapel that had been constructed around 1080. The construction of this chapel took 8 years, and received a royal charter on the same year it was completed. By 1143, mosaics had been partially finished, a clear indication of how its construction was extremely demanding. Upon completion, its sanctuary was dedicated to Saint Peter.

            The architectural design of the chapel combines harmoniously various designs such as: the Byzantine dome and mosaics, the Arabic arches and scripts which adorn its roof and the Norman architecture. The chapel’s clusters of the four eight-pointed stars used the muslim design as they are arranged on the ceiling in order to form a Christian cross. The muqarnas ceiling is the other remarkable feature of this chapel. The ceiling is extremely spectacular, and shows how knowledgeable individuals that constructed the chapel were. Besides the amazing ceiling, the chapel also has hundreds of facets that were painted using zoomorphic and ornamental vegetal designs. At the same time, the chapel’s paintings also reflects the various daily scenes of life, some of which are yet to be interpreted up to today. These paintings are believed to have been statistically influenced by the Iraqi Abbasid art as they are innovative in the manner in which they represent animals and personages.

            The chapel’s well-lit interior is extremely breathtaking. This aspect is brought about by the presence of exquisite mosaics. The mosaics job was done by the Byzantine Greek artisans brought to Palermo in 1140 by Roger II specifically for this project. These mosaics capture every movement, details and expression of the chapel with immense power. One of the features of this chapel that attracts people attention is the depiction of Christ Pantocrator. In addition, most of the mosaics in this chapel recount the events that took place in the Old Testament. However, some of the scenes of the mosaics simply recount the significant role that Palermo played in the Crusades. Moreover, the chapel also has a sanctuary which represents the Norman culture. The chapel’s sanctuary is dedicated to St. Martin and St. Dionysius.

References

Fabbri, P. (2002). Palermo and Monreale. Florence, Italy: Casa Editrice Bonechi.