The story of this place
Built from 1174 by the Norman king William II near Palermo, Monreale Cathedral is the supreme monument of Sicily's astonishing Norman-Arab-Byzantine culture, where Latin Christian rulers, Greek Orthodox mosaicists, and Muslim craftsmen worked side by side. Its interior is sheathed in some 6,500 square metres of golden mosaics—one of the largest such cycles in the world—depicting the whole Bible from Creation to Christ, dominated by a vast, majestic Christ Pantocrator in the apse. Legend says the king built it after the Virgin appeared to him in a dream revealing hidden treasure to fund it. The adjoining cloister, with 228 carved twin columns each unique, is a marvel of medieval sculpture blending Romanesque and Islamic motifs.