Castello di Maredolce: An Arab-Norman Royal Pleasure Palace in Palermo
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Sicily, Norman
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page12 sections
History
Castello di Maredolce, also known as Palazzo della Favara, is an Arab-Norman palace complex in Palermo, Italy, whose principal rebuilding and enlargement took place after the Norman conquest of 1071. It stood among the royal pleasure palaces, or Solatii Regii, established in Palermo’s parks, and its history combines Muslim, Norman, Swabian, religious, and agricultural phases.
Muslim and Norman origins
The origins of Maredolce remain uncertain. The area was known by the ninth century, and some interpretations connect the palace’s foundation with the Kalbid emir Ja’far al-Kalbi, perhaps above an earlier structure. Other interpretations assign the palace chiefly to the Norman period while attributing the Favara lake to the Hauteville era. The Kalbids were the Muslim dynasty that ruled the Emirate of Sicily during its prosperous tenth- and early eleventh-century period, while the Hautevilles were the Norman family that established the Kingdom of Sicily.
A tradition preserved in the Codice Diplomatico di Sicilia attributes an initial palace at Favara to Muhammad ibn Khafaja, the fifth emir of Sicily. After his appointment as emir of Palermo in 869, he is said to have commissioned a palace at the foot of Monte Grifone to comfort his widowed mother. The model was reportedly a lakeside palace at Kairouan, built between 850 and 867. The adjoining lake served family recreation and military training for the emir’s sons.
During the tenth-century Kalbid emirate, the complex belonged to the emir Ja’far al-Kalbi II. Early references associated with the palace and its park occur in Romuald Guarna’s Chronicon sive Annales and in a twelfth-century poem by Abd ar-Rahman al-Itrabanishi.
Count Roger I occupied the area in 1071 during the Norman conquest of Palermo. The Normans then rebuilt and enlarged the palace. It became a residence of Roger II, the first king of Sicily and a central ruler of the Siculo-Norman kingdom, and formed part of the network of royal pleasure palaces in Palermo. The Swabian rulers later modified the complex.
Religious and agricultural transformation
In 1328, King Frederick III transferred the castle and park to the Teutonic Order, a medieval Catholic military-religious order founded during the Crusades. With its headquarters at the Basilica della Magione, the order converted the complex into a hospital.
In 1460, the property passed to the Sicilian Beccadelli di Bologna family through an emphyteutic lease, a long-term hereditary lease granting use and economic exploitation while ownership remained with another party. In the seventeenth century it became the property of Francesco Agraz, Duke of Castelluccio. Under the Agraz family, the site was transformed into an agricultural estate, and the neglected building acquired the name “Castellaccio.”
Ownership passed to the Conti and Castellana families toward the end of the nineteenth century. The road beside the castle was named for Salvatore Conti, a Palermo deputy mayor who later owned the property; it is now called Via Emiro Giafar. The Castellana family retained the complex until the period after the Second World War. Abandonment, deterioration, and successive illegal constructions then affected the property.
Restoration and heritage history
The Sicilian Region acquired the building by expropriation in 1992, and restoration began in 2007 under the Palermo Superintendency. Some adjoining spaces were still illegally occupied in 2016, limiting proper public use. The precarious condition of the structure also temporarily prevented its inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalù and Monreale.
Remains
Castello di Maredolce survives as an Arab-Norman building within a former fortified complex at the foot of Monte Grifone. The palace, artificial lake, garden, bathhouse, and chapel formed a connected landscape shaped by water, enclosed space, and royal use. Tuff blocks and pointed arches characterize the main construction, while the wider complex preserves evidence of later religious and agricultural adaptations.
Palace and water complex
Palace
The palace has a quadrangular plan organized around a large central courtyard. A portico with cross-vaulted roofing originally surrounded the courtyard, and traces of it survive. The exterior is built of tuff blocks and includes pointed arches. On the side away from the lake, four entrances lead into the building, including access to the great royal hall, or Aula regia, and to the Palatine Chapel, a chapel associated with a ruler’s palace.
Artificial lake
The artificial lake surrounded the palace on three sides and was supplied by springs rising from Monte Grifone. A tuff-block dam interrupted the spring’s course to form the basin, which contained an artificial island of about two hectares. The spring dried up in the sixteenth century, after which the former fishpond became fertile agricultural land that remains part of the complex.
Garden and associated buildings
Favara Park
Favara Park was arranged as a water-rich garden with many tree species, especially citrus and other fruit trees. Waterways and exotic animals formed part of its design. The layout followed the tradition of Islamic gardens in Ifriqiya and contemporary Spanish gardens, where orchards and water were central elements. The former lake has largely dried up, while numerous unpaved paths remain around the palace and the fishpond.
Bathhouse
The adjacent bathhouse has been incorporated into a small building since the nineteenth century, making its original form difficult to identify within the later construction.
Palatine Chapel
The Church of Saints Philip and James, also called the Palatine Chapel of Maredolce, appears in a diploma of 1274. It has a rectangular, single-nave plan with two bays covered by cross vaults. A transept is crowned by a hemispherical dome.
