Among the precious objects kept in the Palatine Chapel Treasury are valuable ivory artefacts: fifteen caskets and a crosier with precious stones. The caskets contained documents and relics and feature both engraved and carved decorations. However, there are also Islamic-style ebony objects from the ...

Inside the crypt of the Royal Palace, in the Chapel Treasury, there are precious objects that recall the history of the church, such as furniture, furnishings, monstrances, liturgical vestments, codices, icons, reliquaries and relics, all dating back to Norman and Swabian times. Reading the 1309 inv...

The baptismal font, found in churches and baptisteries, is the basin containing the water for baptism, the moment in which one is reborn to new life, according to Christian religion. The Palatine Chapel’s baptismal font is located in the left aisle, in the space of the narthex. The latter is a tra...

The Diaconicon is a sacred and ritual space located in the presbytery, specifically in the right apse, while the Prothesis is located in the left apse. The Prothesis, Diaconicon and Bema constituted the three curved volumes of the presbytery, according to a solution widely used in early medieval chu...

The Prothesis is a sacred and ritual space located in the presbytery, specifically in the left apse, while the Diaconicon is located in the right apse. The Prothesis, Diaconicon and Bema constituted the three curved volumes of the presbytery, according to a solution widely used in early medieval chu...

The pointed arch, or ogival arch, consists of two circular arches intersecting at the apex. It was used in Islamic and Byzantine architecture and was revived in Sicily (in Cefalù, Palermo and Monreale) during the Norman-Swabian period. It also appeared in Cluny in 1088, with the construction of the...

In the Latin cross layout, the nave and transept are of different lengths, while in the Greek cross layout the “arms” are equal in length. The transept, in fact, intersecting the longitudinal nave at right angles, gives the church its classic layout. The point of intersection, called the cross, ...

The opus sectile consists of the depiction of animal or human figures, using slabs of two or three marbles. Marble pieces, therefore, have a larger size and are evaluated according to opacity, brilliance, colour, shades. Opus tessellatum, which can be found as an alternative to opus sectile, is one ...

The Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, now called the Crypt, is a small church preceded by a narthex, located at the Palatine Chapel and oriented, like Byzantine churches, towards the rising sun. It could date back to the early Norman period, just after the conquest. It is not unusual to think that...

In 1208, Frederick II was no longer under papal protection and was crowned king of Sicily in his own right. The following year, it was the Pope himself who organised the marriage between Frederick and Constance of Aragon, daughter of Peter of Aragon and former widow of Emeric of Hungary. Constance w...