И правда, если за день ничему не научился, зря его прожил, потому что человек, желающий узнать больше, понять и делающий все возможное для этого, действительно чувствует себя уверенней и свободней
Сегодня отец вновь разбудил интерес к Италии, а точнее к городу Палермо. Теперь чувствую, если там не побываю, то сгорю от досады. Из-за этого около часа лазила по просторам нета в поисках новой информации об этом.
Немного истории(взято с wikipedia)Palermo was founded in the 8th century BC by Phoenician tradesmen around a natural harbour on the north-western coast of Sicily. The Phoenician name for the city may have been Zîz, but Greeks called it Panormus (see also List of traditional Greek place names), meaning all-port, because of its fine natural harbour. It should be noted however that the city was never Greek. Palermo is widely considered to be the most conquered city in the world, as showed in the following article.
Palermo remained a Phoenician city until the First Punic War (264-241 BC), when Sicily fell under Roman rule. The Roman period was one of comparative calm, Palermo coming under the provincialadministration in Syracuse. When the Roman Empire was split, Sicily and Palermo came under the rule of the Eastern Byzantine Empire.
In the 9th century, Sicily was divided into two prefectures by the Byzantines. The two prefects went to war with each other, and Euphimius, the winner, dreamt of reuniting the Roman empire. However, he lacked an army, so he asked the Saracens (Muslim Arabs), at the time the up-and-coming power in the Mediterranean, to lend him theirs. Within a week of the Saracens' arrival in Palermo in 827, Euphimius died mysteriously, and they decline to leave. By 878 all of Sicily, except for a few Byzantine enclaves near Taormina, was controlled by the Saracens. In 905 they captured those too. The Arab rulers moved Sicily's capital to Palermo where it has been ever since. Under Muslim's dominion Palermo beacame an important commercial and cultural center, a flourishing city broadly known in all Arab world - it is said that it had more than 300 mosques. But they were also years of tolerance: Christians and Jews were permitted to follow their own credo.
In 1060 the Normans launched a crusade against the Muslim emirate of Sicily, taking Palermo on January 10, 1072 and the whole island by 1091. The resulting blend of Norman and Arab culture fostered a unique hybrid style of architecture as can be seen[1] in the Palatine Chapel, the church San Giovanni degli Eremiti and the Zisa.
Sicily in 1194 fell under the control of the Holy Roman Empire. Palermo was the preferred city of the Emperor Frederick II. After an interval of Angevin rule (1266-1282), Sicily came under the house of Aragon and later, in (1479), the kingdom of Spain.
Sicily's unification (1734) with the Bourbon-ruled kingdom of Naples as the kingdom of the Two Sicilies inflicted a devastating blow on the elite of Palermo, as the city was reduced to just another provincial city, the royal court residing in Naples. Palermo rebelled in 1848 and held out against the Neapolitan crown until May 1849.
The Italian Risorgimento and Sicily's annexation (1860) to the kingdom of Italy gave Palermo a second chance. It was once again the administrative centre of Sicily, and there was a certain economic and industrial development.
Palermo survived almost the entire fascist period unscathed, but during the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 it suffered heavy damage.
The importance of Palermo got another boost when Sicily became (1947) an autonomous region with extended self-rule. But any improvement was thwarted by the rising power of the Mafia, which still today is a dramatic feature of the city, as well as the whole Southern Italy.
Palermo is a city with monumental problems, but is also a city of almost three millennia of history, beautiful palaces and churches, colourful markets, marvelous food and a distinctive cultural identity.
И о достопримечательностяхThe Cathedral of Palermo.
The Porta Nuova ("New Gate") is the monumental access to the centre of the city.
Palazzo dei Normanni.
Palermo is among the richest cities of monuments in Italy, and perhaps in the world. It is also the main centre of Norman architecture in Europe.
Churches
* The Cathedral of Palermo (a former mosque turned into a church from 1135)
* San Giovanni degli Eremiti (1132)
* Martorana (Santa Maria dell'Ammiragliato, 1143)
* San Cataldo (12th century)
* Santa Maria della Gangia
* San Giuseppe dei Teatini
* Oratorio di San Lorenzo
* Oratorio del Rosario
* Santa Teresa alla Kalsa derives its name from an Arab term meaning elected. The church, constructed in 1686-1706 over the former emir's residence, is one of the most outstanding examples of Sicilian Baroque. It has a single, airy nave, with stucco decorations from the early 18th century.
* Santa Maria dello Spasimo was built in 1506 and later turned into a hospital. For this temple Raphael painted his famous Sicilia's Spasimo, now in the Museo del Prado of Madrid. The church today is a fascinating air-open ruin, which occasionally houses exhibitions and musical shows.
Palaces and Museums
* Palazzo dei Normanni, one of the most beautiful Italian palaces and a notable example of Norman architecture, probably built over an Arab fortress. It house the famous Palatine Chapel.
* Zisa (1160)
* Cuba
* Palazzo Chiaramonte
* Palazzo Abatellis, with the Regional Gallery. It was built at the end of the 15th century for the prefect of the city, Francesco Abatellis. It is a lassive though elegant construction, in typical Catalan Gothic style, with Renaissance influences. The Gallery houses an Elenora of Aragon bust by Francesco Laurana (1471) and the Malvagna Tryptich (c. 1510), by Jan Gossaert and the famous Annunziata by Antonello da Messina.
* The Museo Archeologico Regionale is one the main museums of Italy: it includes numerous remains from Etruscan, Carthaginian, Roman and Hellenistic civilizations.
Theatres
* The Teatro Massimo ("Greatest Theatre") was opened in 1897. Closed for renovation from 1974 until 2000, it is now carefully restored and has an active schedule. Enrico Caruso sang in a performance of La Gioconda during the opening season, returning for Rigoletto at the very end of his career.
* The Teatro Politeama was built between 1867 and 1874. Nowadays, the town's Gallery of Modern Art is accommodated here.
Другие крайне интересные местечки:
The Cathedral has a heliometer (solar "observatory") of 1690, one of a number1 built in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The device itself is quite simple: a tiny hole in one of the minor domes acts as Pinhole camera, projecting an image of the sun onto the floor at solar noon (12:00 in winter, 13:00 in summer). There is a bronze line, la Meridiana on the floor, running precisely N/S. The ends of the line mark the positions as at the summer and winter solstices; signs of the zodiac show the various other dates throughout the year.
The purpose of the instrument was to standardise the measurement of time and the calendar. The convention in Sicily had been that the (24 hour) day was measured from the moment of sun-rise, which of course meant that no two locations had the same time and, more importantly, did not have the same time as in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It was also important to know when the Vernal Equinox occurred, to provide the correct date for Easter.
The "solar clock" can be up to 16 minutes fast or slow. The reason for this is explained fully in Main Articles Analemma and Equation of time, but can be summarised thus: the earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours but it also orbits the sun. Thus the sun will appear directly over the same spot increasingly early (or late) each day. The correct track to draw on the ground is a figure 8 rather than a line.
The Orto Botanico of Palermo, founded in 1785, is the largest in Italy with a surface of 10 ha.
One site of interest is the Capuchin Catacombs, with many mummified corpses in varying degrees of preservation.
Close to the city is 600 meter high Monte Pellegrino, with spectacular views of the city, its surrounding mountains and the ocean. In his book, "Travels in Italy", Goethe described Monte Pellegrino as the most beuatiful promontory in the world.
чувства: Ну разве не сказка...
Разум: все б это, да еще на итальянском...
Palazzo Normanni:
Cattedrale: