Byzantine – Ingliando

On this day, the city of Syracuse, the Byzantine capital of Sicily, fell to the Aghlabid forces after a siege lasting 10 months. The Aghlabids had tried several times without success to capture Syracuse since their arrival in Western Sicily in the 820s and the new governor Ja’far ibn Muhammad was determined to change their fortunes. The inhabitants of Syracuse, unsupported by the Byzantine fleet which was busy transporting marble for a new church in Constantinople, had to face great hardships and famine. When the Aghlabids finally managed to make a breach in the seaward walls and to break through it into the city, the defenders either fell in battle or were taken prisoner. With the capture of Taormina in 902, the Muslim conquest of Sicily was effectively complete.

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On this day, a palm Sunday, the Palatine Chapel in Palermo was finally consecrated. Commissioned in 1132 by King Roger II, a Norman and the first official king of Sicily, the church took eight years to build and several more before the shimmering mosaics of unparalleled elegance that cover the entire interior were completed. Dedicated to Saint Peter and inscribed on UNESCO’s world heritage list, this magnificent chapel with its unique mixture of Byzantine, Norman and Fatimid architectural styles, is a fitting testimony to King Roger’s philosophy of religious toleration on an island that was already a melting pot of different cultures. Oscar Wilde wrote that in the Palatine Chapel one can only feel “as if sitting in the heart of a large beehive watching the angels sing.”

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