Palermo (outskirts) Fawara (Maredolce) Palace and lake 1130-1154

    The Maredolce Palace, located near the source of the Fawara, is sometimes wrongly described as a castle. In fact, it is a solatium (place of pleasure), also featuring an artificial lake (stew pond) and a luxuriant garden (viridarium). The Norman kings of Sicily established an extensive system of parks for hunting and summer retreat, combining the Anglo-Norman love of the chase with the Arab-Byzantine delight in palaces and pavilions in which to relax and take refuge from the summer heat. Fawara, the first of these Norman leisure complexes was built by Roger II. The palace consists of a vast central courtyard, surrounded by rooms accessed via a portico, as in contemporary Islamic architecture. The complex also includes a small chapel with a cupola raised on a tall cylindrical drum above the transept. The photographs show the north-west elevation and a foreshortened view of the transept.

Vittorio Noto

Bibliography
L. Anastasi, "L'arte nel Parco reale normanno di Palermo", Palermo, 1935
S. Braida, "il castello di Fawara", Architetti di Sicilia
V. Noto, " Les palais et les jardins siciliens des rois normands", Trésor romans d'Italie du Sud et de Sicilie, Toulouse-Caen, 1995 ( V. anche le schede di Altofonte e dello Scibene)

Photography
Vittorio Noto