Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 15, NIC-PAR

P A L [ 704 ] PAL
Palermo, tains, most of which are marble, all of them adorned
with pieces of sculpture, and all aflord large quantities
„ of water.
The situation of this city is truly happy j the sea, the
hills, the lofty mountains, present on all sides beautiful
and striking prospects, which render it one ol. the most
favourable situations for the genius of the artist, whose
object is to copy the beauty and sublimity of nature.
Freed from the fetters of the Inquisition, the abolition
of which was procured by the marquis of Caraccioli,
and from the influence of some other unfavourable insti¬
tutions, which are rapidly declining, Palermo must be¬
come one of the finest cities in the world j and the island,
of which it is the capital, being all cultivated like a gar_
den, one of the most enchanting spots on the face of the
earth. Nature has denied none of her best spots to Si¬
cily. It was the benignity of nature, which, in the
happy ages of antiquity, when the political circumstan¬
ces of the Sicilians were not such as to repress their ge¬
nius, prompted and enabled them to erect so many il¬
lustrious monuments. “ Adjoining to the town, and
near the sea, is a public garden or promenade, planted
with orange and lemon trees, formed into arcades, and
* February. now loaded with fru;t* ; tl,e stems of the trees stand in
furrows, and are continually watered by a small stream.
In the middle is a fountain, on which stands a colossus
of white marble, surrounded by four grotesque temples,
in two of which are canary birds. Among the oranges
is a kind called sanguinei or bloody, which are stained
in the middle with red, and have usually the finest fla¬
vour. Some of the lemons are sweet, but very flat, ta¬
sting like sugar and water. The citrons grow to an im¬
mense size j the rind, which occupies at least thiee'-
fourths of the bulk of the fruit, is eaten with sugar; the
juice is sharper than the sourest lemon. Indian figs in
very great abundance grow wild in the fields and hedges,
to the height of twelve or fourteen feet: of these there
are three kinds, one with large spines, another with
smaller, and the third almost smooth, iheir fruit is
cooling and delicious, io,oool. wortli of which is sold
annually to the poor people in the neighbourhood of this
city. Another plant, very common in this country, is
the aloe, which usually blossoms every fifth or sixth year.
Of these there are five or six species, which grow most¬
ly in the hedges, and together with the Indian figs, form
a most impenetrable fence.
“ The palace, which is an indifferent old building, is
situated in a square, near the south gate of the city,
and commands a delightful prospect of the adjacent
country. At the top is an observatory, inhabited by
an ingenious old priest %vho has been in England, and
brought from thence several astronomical instruments
constructed by Ramsden.” Neither the structure, situ¬
ation, nor architectural ornaments of the palace are such
as to merit any extraordinary praise. It is, like many
others, an assemblage of buildings erected in various ages,
as need of accommodation or fancy suggested ; and, of
consequence, it must unavoidably be defective in archi¬
tectural order and beauty. The chapel is the only
part of it that merits any attention. It was founded
by the Counts Roger, the Norman conquerors of Si¬
cily. Within, it is decorated with beautiful pieces of
marble and porphyry, and of mosaic work in gold and
various colours. It is in the same taste with the ca¬
thedral of Montreale. It is built on the same plan
with common churches, only on a smaller scale. The Palermo. fulff*1
nave is encircled with pillars ; on the right and the left'
are two narrower openings, called lateral or low passa¬
ges : the choir and sanctuary are at the end of the nave.
Among all the pillars which enclose the nave, it would
be hard to find two exactly of the same form and work¬
manship. Opposite to a channelled column stands an¬
other on which the graving tool has made no such im¬
pressions ; several have neither astragal, nor base, nor
scale : they are formed of various kinds of marble, and
are of diflerent orders and unequal in height. The
walls, the arcades, and the arches, are covered with mo¬
saic work, in gold and colours, representing angels, and
male and female saints.
Over the entrance into the choir, and fronting the
nave, there is an Eternal Father of a huge size; the de¬
sign of which has, in all probability, been to impress
the beholder with a sufficiently awful idea of the great¬
ness of God. Such representations of the deity, how¬
ever improper, not to say impious, occur pretty com¬
monly in the churches of Sicily. The cathedrals of
both Montreale and Palermo display the Divine Ma¬
jesty with equal dignity. Over the walls of the cha¬
pel there are many pieces of granite, porphyry, and
serpentine, cut into a round, or a square, or some other-
form, and set like panes of glass. I heir edges are en¬
circled with various draughts in gold and colours ; de¬
corations unquestionable expensive, as they are indeed
very finely executed in their kind. Rut it is amazing
that such irregularity of design was admitted in a build¬
ing of such magnificence and raised at such an enormous
expence. T he pavement of the chapel has been origi¬
nally laid, and still consists in part of large blocks of tin,
porphyry, and serpentine. Most of these are round ;
ornamented with compartments of draughts, and cover¬
ed over, as well as the w'alls, with incrustations of co¬
loured mosaic work. I he seat designed for the
roy is of the same kind, and highly ornamented. The
candlestick intended to receive the wax lights at the
festival of Easter is of white marble. All the riches of
sculpture are lavished on it with such profusion as ren¬
ders it a prodigy of labour ; but in a fantastic unnatu¬
ral taste.
In a long gallery in tbe palace of the viceroy, stand
two figures of rams in bronze, concerning which we
find the following tradition.—Archimedes is said to
have long ago erected in one of the public squares of
Syracuse four columns with a brazen ram upon the top
of each. He is said to have placed them there in such
a posture, as that some one of them always indicated
which of the four principal winds was blowing ; and it is
added, that they were fabricated with such art, that the
wind caused them to utter sounds exactly similar to the
bleating of sheep ; and whenever any one of the four
bleated, he thereby gave notice that the wind was blow¬
ing from that quarter towards which he stood. It is
certain (as travellers inform us) that the two brazen
rams in this gallery are perforated with small holes m
their flanks, close to their thighs, and in other places
over their bodies ; and that by blowing through those
holes a sound is produced pretty much like the bleating
of sheep. The wind appears to pass through the holes,
and to pass out at the mouth : there might, however,
be other holes in the pedestal on which the ram stood,
or in other parts of the body, which might contribute to
produce