Our Contemporary Guide to Sicily
If you go to Palermo you must know that:
1 – It has the largest Historic Center in Europe (Controversial, but in the records of UNESCO it is such. It beats that of Lisbon).
2 – The oldest paper document in Europe is found in Palermo. This is the bilingual (Greek and Arabic) letter from Adelasia (or Adelaide) of the Aleramici, wife of Roger I, count of Sicily and
Calabria.
3 – You will find the ‘Pietra di Palermo’, judged the second most important – after the Rosetta stone – bilingual text for the translation of the Egyptian language.
4 – In Palermo, the Salinas museum houses one of the largest collections of Etruscan art in the world (Bonci – Casuccini da Chiusi collection).
5 – Teatro Massimo is the first opera house in Italy and the third in Europe, the second soloist at the Paris Opera and the Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna.
6 – Palermo boasts some of the largest urban gates in Europe.
7 – The Italian language was born in Palermo at the Sicilian School at the court of Federico II.
8 – The Botanical Garden of Palermo is the largest in Europe.
9 – The palm grove of Villa Bonanno has been judged the largest in Europe.
10 – The Ficus Magnoloides of Piazza Marina are among the largest trees in Europe.
11 – Parco della Favorita is the largest urban park in Italy.
12 – The Sicilian Parliament is the oldest parliament in the world, together with that of Iceland and the Fare Oer Islands. In 1130 King Roger convenes the first assembly.
13 – Palermo was the first city in the world to have two opera houses.
14 – The Chinese Palace is the only building in Europe with the same architectural style.
15 – The Qanat are unique in all of Europe, we can find them only and only in Iran and Syria.
16 – The wooden ceiling of the Palatine Chapel is considered the greatest monument of Islamic art on the planet.
17 – The wooden ceiling of the Aula Magna of Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri is considered, in Europe, the highest pictorial level on wood from the Middle Ages.
18 – The Mirror Gallery of Palazzo Valguarnera-Gangi is the greatest production of Baroque-rocaille art in Europe.
19 – The Murano chandelier in the ballroom of Palazzo Pietratagliata is the largest in Italy
20 – Villa Giulia is the oldest urban park in the world also open to the “plebs”.
21 – The architecture of the Castle of Maredolce is unique in Europe and we find it only in the Maghreb countries.
22 – The Punic Necropolis of Palermo is the largest in the Punic world.
23 – The Abisso della Pietra Selvaggia, a vertical karst cave on Mount Pellegrino, is the largest in Southern Italy.
24 – The graffiti of the Addaura Caves are considered unique in prehistoric rock art.
25 – The Triumph of Death, now in Palazzo Abatellis, inspired Picasso for the Guernica.
26 – The Mabuse triptych in Palazzo Abatellis is considered one of the greatest examples of Flemish art in the world.
27 – Giacomo Serpotta was the greatest plasterer of all time.
28 – The pictorial cycle of the hall of Villa Igiea by Ettore de Maria Bergler is considered one of the greatest examples of Art Nouveau in the world.
29 – There are no other examples in the world of the graffiti found in the Palazzo della Santa Inquisizione.
30 – The Water Cistern in the basement of the Marquis palace has been identified by scholars from Jerusalem as the oldest and largest Jewish ritual bath in Europe.
31 – In the Palermo Astronomical Observatory Giuseppe Piazzi discovered a class of asteroids, naming the first one he discovered as Ceres, now classified as a dwarf planet. It will be visited in 2015 by NASA’s Dawn probe. Furthermore, in the same observatory, the astronomer collaborated with Piazzi in drafting the very first stellar catalogues, discovered the globular cluster NGC 6541, and gave the name to the two main stars of the Delphinus constellation.