The two most beautiful of these churches are right in the center of town, the "Quattro Canti" and just off the main street, Via Maqueda. They are on a terrace above Piazza Bellini: one, "la Martorana", often used for smart or pseudo-smart weddings is usually open; the other, San Cataldo, with the usual rose domes, usually closed. It suffered less from additions and restoration than its companion and gives a perfect example of its type. Like the cubes, it has rounded blind arches and Arab fretwork in the stone round the cornice. The other two are further afield, both dedicated to St. John: the first "of the Lepers", was built by Roger I in 1070; the second "of the Hermits, set in a delightful garden complete with ruined cloister.
A short walk from St. John's is what was once the center of Norman Palermo, Palazzo dei Normanni. Despite its name, the seat of the regional government has very little Norman to it, but the one piece it does have is worth the whole trip. The Palatine Chapel is a fabulous combination of oriental workmanship and occidental iconography.
The walls and apse are covered with mosaics, which use Arabic techniques but Christian pictures. When Roger the Norman conquered Sicily in the name of the Latin Roman Church, he was not going to renounce either the Greek or Arab skill, so the chapel is covered with glorious mosaics, a painted wooden Arab ceiling and a 4.5 meter Paschal candle which combines elements from all three cultures. A few miles from Palermo is that other glory of oriental mosaics combined with Christian iconography, the cathedral of Monreale; but that is a whole other story. Back in town, it is not surprising that the National Gallery in the 15th century Palazzo Abatellis in the heart of the old city, has some fine pieces of Arab-Norman art, mainly plates; but it is the Palace itself which demands to be admired, Catalan-Gothic showing how Palermo continued in its cosmopolitan styles, as well as their two best-known, the huge fresco, the "Triumph of Death" and Antonello of Messina's hauntingly real and beautiful Madonna, the "Annunciation". From Palazzo Abatellis, take a walk through an apparently decaying but actually very lively old city. Some palaces are in poor shape, some are beyond repair, but others are lived in or worked in. The home of one of the great families of mediaeval Palermo, Palazzo Chiaramonte, now belongs to the university, but gives an idea of the family's power. The nearby Palazzo Butera is also immense but baroque, still belonging to the family. The stables are used as an art gallery and headquarters of the "Palazzo intelligente" project which is trying with some success to breathe cultural life back into Palermo. One piece of culture a short walk from Palazzo Butera has never stopped growing - literally. This is the Botanical Garden founded in 1789 as its neo-classical pavilions show and the nearest the Enlightenment could get to the Zisa, combining science and sensory delight. Palermo's climate allows an extravagant variety of European and exotic plants for agriculture and pleasure. There are all sorts of citrus and cotton plants, which are useful; then for the stunningly beautiful, a circular lily pond divided into segments each with a different water lily. The prize, though, at least for the northern or continental visitor is the fichus magno loides, known much more expressively by West Indians as the walking tree. The trunk grows up, the branches spread out and then let down stalks which become pillars and roots supporting a living Gothic cathedral which makes Rackham's fairy tale drawings look tame. The trees are alive like a giant iguana, and pointed and flowered like Beauvais Cathedral.
