Description
The Museum of Islamic Art in Palermo gathers Islamic art objects from Sicily and the Mediterranean area, produced between the ninth and twelfth centuries. It is housed in the Zisa, the Arab-Norman palace west of the historic center, open as a museum since 1991.
The place is worth as much as the collection. The Zisa (from the Arabic al-ʿAzīza, "the splendid") was built from 1165 as a summer residence of the Norman kings, in the royal park of the Genoardo, the "paradise on earth." The work was finished by William II, and in 2015 it joined the UNESCO heritage list.
The palace is a masterpiece of air engineering: it faced the sea to catch the breezes, which passed over a large fishpond and were cooled. In the Fountain Room, with honeycomb niches and a golden mosaic, water slides down toward the fishpond.
The museum displays objects from the Arab period (ninth to eleventh century), but most are from the Norman era, when Islamic influence in Sicily was still strong. They come from various countries around the Mediterranean.
Among the pieces not to miss are the brass, gold and silver utensils, engraved and often adorned with gold and silver thread. Then the mashrabiyas, wooden lattice screens made of many little spindles fitted together to form refined patterns.
But the object that tells the most is a gravestone from 1149, which repeats the same Christian inscription in four languages: Hebrew, Latin, Byzantine Greek and Arabic. It is a portrait of the multiethnic Palermo of the Middle Ages.
The Zisa, too, has an eventful history. In the seventeenth century a floor was added and the original stairs removed; in 1971 parts of the right wing collapsed. The restoration, led by Giuseppe Caronia, lasted about twenty years and ended in 1991.
An inscription in Kufic script still runs along the palace's parapet: in the late Middle Ages, when the Zisa was turned into a fortress, it was cut at regular intervals to make the battlements.
The place is worth as much as the collection. The Zisa (from the Arabic al-ʿAzīza, "the splendid") was built from 1165 as a summer residence of the Norman kings, in the royal park of the Genoardo, the "paradise on earth." The work was finished by William II, and in 2015 it joined the UNESCO heritage list.
The palace is a masterpiece of air engineering: it faced the sea to catch the breezes, which passed over a large fishpond and were cooled. In the Fountain Room, with honeycomb niches and a golden mosaic, water slides down toward the fishpond.
The museum displays objects from the Arab period (ninth to eleventh century), but most are from the Norman era, when Islamic influence in Sicily was still strong. They come from various countries around the Mediterranean.
Among the pieces not to miss are the brass, gold and silver utensils, engraved and often adorned with gold and silver thread. Then the mashrabiyas, wooden lattice screens made of many little spindles fitted together to form refined patterns.
But the object that tells the most is a gravestone from 1149, which repeats the same Christian inscription in four languages: Hebrew, Latin, Byzantine Greek and Arabic. It is a portrait of the multiethnic Palermo of the Middle Ages.
The Zisa, too, has an eventful history. In the seventeenth century a floor was added and the original stairs removed; in 1971 parts of the right wing collapsed. The restoration, led by Giuseppe Caronia, lasted about twenty years and ended in 1991.
An inscription in Kufic script still runs along the palace's parapet: in the late Middle Ages, when the Zisa was turned into a fortress, it was cut at regular intervals to make the battlements.