Eight hundred years of rebuilding in one structure: Norman, Catalan Gothic, Baroque and Neoclassical coexist without ever merging.
Distance
Area
Capo / Cassaro
Visit
60 min
Entry
Partly ticketed
The story
Founded in 1185 by the English archbishop Walter Ophamil on the site of an early Christian basilica that had become a mosque under Arab rule. The south flank and the apses preserve the Norman fabric; the porch is 15th-century Catalan Gothic; the interior was radically remodelled by Ferdinando Fuga between 1781 and 1801. It holds the imperial tombs of Roger II, Henry VI, Constance of Hauteville and Frederick II, the treasury with Constance of Aragon's crown, and Giuseppe Piazzi's meridian line.