William II intended it as a challenge to heaven and to Palermo's cathedral: Monreale's duomo, begun in 1174, clothes its naves in more than six thousand square metres of golden mosaics — the largest Byzantine biblical cycle in the West, its Christ Pantocrator embracing the apse. Since 2015 it has been UNESCO-listed within the Arab-Norman route.
Beside it, the Benedictine cloister lines up 228 paired columns, each one different, around the garden. From the belvedere, the Conca d'Oro valley falls toward Palermo: Norman Sicily explained in a single glance.
Near Monreale
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
