The Cathedral of Cefalù has been included in the list of World Heritage Sites within the site “Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale” since July 3, 2015.
The Unesco site counts nine monumental cultural goods, seven of which are located in Palermo: the Royal Palace and the Palatine Chapel, the Church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti, the Church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, the Church of San Cataldo, Zisa Palace, the Metropolitan Primatial Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Mary Assunta, the Bridge of the Admiral, the Cathedral of Cefalù and the Cathedral of Monreale.
These monuments enclose the unmistakable characteristics of the Arab-Norman architecture. As pieces of a mosaic capable of reconstructing the magnificence of the Norman era in Sicily (1130-1194), testimonies of a past fruit of heterogeneous languages combined in a perfect harmony.
The Islamic, Byzantine and Latin arts represent the extraordinary fulcrum of the cultural syncretism that lives again today in these architectures of immense beauty, where different masters give life to a new civilization that constitutes the central soul of the Arab-Norman style.
The pacific social cohabitation among the people under the Norman kingdom is reflected with great wonder in the urban texture and in the artistic and architectural manifestations of the period.
The project for the recognition of the Cathedral of Cefalù as a World Heritage Site has been promoted by the “Fondazione Patrimonio Unesco Sicilia”, the Regional Department of Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity, with the contributions of the “Fondazione di Sicilia”, the Municipalities of Palermo, Cefalù and Monreale, the archbishops of the dioceses of Palermo, Cefalù and Monreale and the Eparchy of Piana degli Albanesi.
