Sicily Revealed: Mosaics of Palermo (Italy Travel Guide)

Travel guidebooks for the ultra curious, Approach Guides reveal a destination’s essence by exploring a compelling aspect of its cultural heritage: art, architecture, history, food, or wine.

Having finally won the island of Sicily from entrenched Islamic forces after thirty years of battle, the Normans set upon creating a multicultural kingdom to inspire the world. While the Norman civilization has since faded from history, its brilliant churches, glittering with mosaic decoration, serve as enduring reminders of its greatness. They are yours to discover.

What’s in this guidebook

* Tour of the highlights. Following our tradition of being the most valuable resource for culture-focused travelers, we take a look at four 12th century Norman churches, located in and around Palermo: Cefalù Cathedral, Palatine Chapel, Martorana, and Monreale Cathedral. Wonders of engineering and design, they selectively borrow features from Sicily’s three prevailing cultures — Western Christian (Latin), Byzantine Christian (Greek), and North African Islamic — to reveal a unique and compelling aesthetic.

* Mosaic style. We detail the prevailing style and explain how it changed over time. As part of this review, we touch on relevant symbolism and the technical hurdles mosaicists encountered. In particular, you will see how Christ Pantocrator images adapt and evolve to meet new requirements. To make things come alive, we have packed our review with high-resolution images.

* Advice for getting the best cultural experience. To help you plan your visit, this guidebook supplies logistical advice, maps and links to online resources. Plus, we give our personal tips for getting the most from your experience while on location.

* Information the way you like it. As with all of our guides, this book is optimized for intuitive, quick navigation; information is organized into bullet points to make absorption easy; and images are marked up with text that explains important features.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE
Approach Guides often updates content and releases new editions of its guidebooks. These updates are FREE for existing customers. Please visit http://approachguides.com/updates for a list of recently updated guides and instructions on downloading the new version.

PRAISE FOR APPROACH GUIDES
Compulsive (and compulsively informed) travelers, the Raezers are the masterminds behind the downloadable Approach Guides, which are filled with a university course-worth of history and insights for 62 destinations worldwide. WHY WE LOVE IT: The Raezers share our desire for deep, well-researched information on the wonders of the world.
- Travel + Leisure

What started as one couple's travel notes aimed at filling in the gaps in guidebooks has become ApproachGuides.com - a menu of downloadable travel guides that cover cultural and historical topics of interest to thoughtful travelers. What's hot: Bite-sized travel guides that specialize in topics ranging from 29 pages on the foods of Italy to one that helps you explore the historical and architectural significance of Angkor's famous temple structures in Cambodia.
- LA Times