P3266228ac Palermo Cathedral Duomo Central Part of the Southern Aisle

No more safety backward to picture it in totality except to go to the extreme right on East: After its Western facade (on left and not visible here), the cathedral crosses Bonello street to present its bell towers; We have waited for the visit as a funeral mass was occuring; From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; The church was erected in 1185 by Walter Ophamil (or Walter of the Mill), the Anglo-Norman archbishop of Palermo and King William II's minister, on the area of an earlier Byzantine basilica; By all accounts this earlier church was founded by St. Gregory and was later turned into a mosque by the Saracens after their conquest of the city in the 9th century; Ophamil is buried in a sarcophagus in the church's crypt; The medieval edifice had a basilica plan with three apses, of which only some minor architectural elements survive today; The upper orders of the corner towers were built between the 14th and the 15th centuries, while in the early Renaissance period the Southern porch was added; The present neoclassical appearance dates from the work carried out over the two decades 1781 to 1801, and supervised by Ferdinando Fuga; Italy Sicily Mediterranean Island Palermo Province Capital Cathedral Duomo.