Palermo

Palermo (ancient Panormus), city and seaport in Italy, capital of Palermo Province on the north-west coast of Sicily, on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Palermo is the largest city and chief port of Sicily. It is a trading centre for the island's agricultural produce and has factories engaged in food processing, steelmaking, shipbuilding, and the manufacture of furniture, leather products, glass, chemicals, cement, textiles, and paper. Many of the oldest buildings in the city date from the period when Sicily was a Norman kingdom and show Arab, Byzantine, Norman, and Spanish influences. Outstanding examples are the cathedral (1169-1185), the Palatine Chapel (1140), and the church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti (1132). The University of Palermo was founded in 1777.

Palermo was founded by the Phoenicians in the 8th century bc and was a Carthaginian colony until taken by the Romans in 254 bc. It subsequently passed into the hands of the Goths (ad 440), the Byzantines (535), the Saracens (831), the Normans (1072), and the Holy Roman Emperors (1194). In 1282 it was the scene of the Sicilian Vespers, the massacre of the ruling French. Population 666,552 (2007 estimate).