La Cuba is the smaller and less celebrated companion to La Zisa in the Arab-Norman palatial programme of 12th-century Palermo a royal pleasure pavilion built by William II of Sicily in 1180 as part of the same Genoardo garden complex, standing approximately 500 metres southeast of La Zisa in what is now the courtyard of a Bourbon-era cavalry barracks. Where La Zisa is the principal palace of the Norman pleasure garden (the large building with the muqarnas hall and the full water programme), La Cuba is the secondary pavilion smaller, more purely residential in character and more directly an expression of the Islamic pleasure pavilion tradition in its most concentrated form. The building is UNESCO-inscribed as part of the Arab-Norman Palermo World Heritage Site (2015) and is the most architecturally pure example of the Islamic qubba (the domed pavilion) in Italy the building type from which it takes its name.
In this guide
- History
- The architecture the Islamic qubba
- The Arabic inscription
- La Cuba in the Genoardo
- The Boccaccio connection
- La Cubula the small companion
- La Cuba in the Arab-Norman circuit
- Visiting La Cuba practical information
- FAQ
History
La Cuba (from the Arabic qubba, “dome” the building type of the domed pleasure pavilion that originated in the Umayyad and Abbasid palatial tradition of the eastern Mediterranean) was built by William II of Sicily in 1180 thirteen years after La Zisa was begun by his father William I, and nine years before William II’s death without heirs that would end the Norman dynasty of Sicily. The building was originally positioned in the centre of a large artificial lake (the fishpond of the Genoardo garden complex), surrounded by water on all sides the classic Islamic pleasure pavilion arrangement in which the building is reflected in the surrounding water and the visual experience of approaching it by boat is the primary architectural encounter designed by the architect.
The subsequent history of La Cuba follows the general pattern of the Genoardo buildings after the Norman period progressive conversion to other uses, structural modification and decline. The Angevin kings used the building as a leper colony in the 13th century; the Aragonese converted it into a residence; the Bourbon military administration turned the surrounding area into the cavalry barracks (the Caserma Tukory) whose courtyard now encloses the building. The lake that surrounded the original pavilion was drained and built over centuries ago; the building now stands on dry ground in the barracks courtyard, its relationship to the water programme visible only in the surviving water channel fragments and the historical descriptions.
The Architecture the Islamic Qubba
La Cuba is the most architecturally pure surviving example of the Islamic qubba tradition in Italy the domed pleasure pavilion whose form derives directly from the Fatimid and Umayyad palace buildings of North Africa and the Near East, translated to Sicily by the Arab craftsmen who served the Norman court. The building is a rectangular block of approximately 19 metres by 34 metres, standing to three storeys, with the specific blind arcading of the Islamic decorative programme covering all four exterior facades.
The blind arcading of La Cuba the series of slightly pointed arches carved in relief on the limestone exterior, forming a continuous decorative pattern around the entire building is the most specifically Islamic single decorative element in the Arab-Norman Palermo programme. The arches are slightly pointed (the “Saracen arch” of the Norman-Arab architectural vocabulary) rather than the rounded arch of the Romanesque or the fully pointed arch of the Gothic the specific form that immediately identifies the building as Islamic in aesthetic derivation even without any prior knowledge of its history.
The interior of La Cuba has been significantly modified from its Norman-period configuration the original domed chamber that gave the building its name has not survived in its original form, and the current interior is largely the product of the various conversion programmes of the Angevin, Aragonese and Bourbon periods. The exterior, however, is substantially intact and provides the most complete surviving facade of the Islamic qubba tradition in the Norman Sicilian architectural programme.
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The Arabic Inscription
La Cuba carries the most important single piece of documentary evidence for the Norman palatial programme the Arabic dedicatory inscription on the exterior of the building that records its construction date and the name of its patron. The inscription reads: “In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. This blessed palace was built at the order of the great king, William II, exalted by God, in the year 1180 AD.” The inscription is in Arabic, not in Latin or Greek the language of the court administration and the court craftsmen who built the building, and the language that the Norman king considered appropriate for the dedication of his most specifically Islamic building.
The Arabic dedication on a building constructed by a Christian king for a Christian court in a Christian kingdom is the most direct single expression of the Norman cultural synthesis available in any physical document the choice of Arabic for the formal dedication of a royal building is an act of cultural identification with the Islamic tradition that goes beyond the employment of Arab craftsmen or the adoption of Islamic architectural forms. William II chose to dedicate his pleasure pavilion in the language of the tradition that produced it. This is the most specific and the most historically audacious expression of the Norman court’s relationship with its Arab cultural inheritance.
La Cuba in the Genoardo
The relationship between La Cuba and La Zisa within the Genoardo garden programme is the relationship between the secondary pavilion and the principal palace La Cuba was the more intimate and more specifically recreational building, positioned in the artificial lake and accessible by boat, while La Zisa was the main reception and entertainment palace of the garden complex. Together the two buildings provided the complete Norman pleasure garden programme: the formal reception and entertainment space (La Zisa, with its muqarnas hall, its water programme and its large garden) and the private retreat (La Cuba, on its island in the fishpond, reached by boat and providing the most specifically Islamic pleasure pavilion experience available in the Norman kingdom).
The Genoardo as a whole the network of palaces, pavilions, fishponds, orchards and water channels that extended across several square kilometres west of medieval Palermo was the most ambitious single garden programme in medieval Europe and the most direct translation of the Islamic paradise garden concept to a northern Mediterranean royal context. La Cuba and La Zisa are the two surviving buildings of a complex that once included the Maredolce palace to the south, the Favara fishpond complex and numerous smaller pavilions and garden structures. Understanding La Cuba requires understanding it as part of this larger programme rather than as a standalone building. Read our complete La Zisa guide.
The Boccaccio Connection
La Cuba has a specific literary heritage that La Zisa lacks it appears by name in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, the most celebrated prose work of the Italian 14th century. In the fifth story of the fifth day (V.6), Boccaccio describes a young Sicilian noble named Gianni di Procida hiding with his beloved in the “Cuba” garden outside Palermo and being discovered by servants of King Frederick II who mistake them for lovers in a royal garden. The story is set in the 13th century (the Aragonese period, when La Cuba was already past its Norman prime) and uses the building as the setting for the specific erotic pastoral tradition of the Italian medieval novella the garden as the space of transgressive pleasure, the royal enclosure as the site of forbidden desire.
Boccaccio’s use of La Cuba is the most specific literary documentation of the building’s real cultural status in the 14th century a place whose specific association with royal pleasure and its specific garden-and-water setting made it the natural setting for a story about transgressive love in an enclosed paradise. The Boccaccio connection gives La Cuba a literary dimension that the purely architectural and historical narrative cannot provide the building that the Norman king built as his private Islamic pleasure pavilion appears 200 years later in the most celebrated Italian literary celebration of human pleasure as the natural setting for a story about desire.
La Cubula the Small Companion
La Cubula (the diminutive of Cuba “the small domed pavilion”) is the third surviving Arab-Norman garden building of the Genoardo complex, located approximately 1 kilometre east of La Cuba in the Via Benedetto D’Acquisto area. La Cubula is the smallest and the most complete of the three Genoardo survivors a tiny domed pavilion of approximately 8 metres square, with the intact pointed dome and the blind arcading of the Norman-Arab decorative programme in the most concentrated single form available in the Palermo Arab-Norman circuit. The building is currently enclosed within a private property and is not regularly accessible to visitors; it is visible from the street and provides the most direct visual evidence for the appearance of the original Norman garden pavilion programme at the smallest scale.
La Cuba in the Arab-Norman Circuit
La Cuba is most productively visited immediately after La Zisa the two buildings are approximately 500 metres apart and together constitute the most complete surviving evidence for the Genoardo garden programme. The combined La Zisa and La Cuba visit (approximately 2 hours total) provides the most concentrated Arab-Norman secular architectural programme available in Palermo. The complete Arab-Norman circuit (La Zisa, La Cuba, Cappella Palatina and Monreale Cathedral) covers the full range of the Norman cultural synthesis the secular Islamic pleasure architecture of the Genoardo, the religious Byzantine-Arab mosaic programme of the royal chapel and the most ambitious single Norman building project of the Mediterranean in a single day. Read our complete Cappella Palatina guide, our Monreale Cathedral guide and our Norman Sicily heritage guide.
Visiting La Cuba Practical Information
Address: Corso Calatafimi 100, Palermo. The building is in the courtyard of the Caserma Tukory (the Tukory barracks) access is through the barracks entrance on the Corso Calatafimi.
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 9am to 6pm, Sunday 9am to 1pm. Access is managed by the Polo Regionale di Palermo per i Parchi e i Musei; entry arrangements may require confirmation in advance check the current status with the regional museum administration before visiting.
Entry fee: Approximately €6 adults. The combined ticket with La Zisa (both buildings under the same regional management) is available and provides a saving for visitors covering both buildings in the same day.
Visit duration: 30 to 45 minutes for La Cuba alone; 2 hours for the combined La Zisa and La Cuba visit. La Cuba is almost never crowded the barracks location and the limited publicity mean that even in the summer season the building can be visited at a pace of genuine attention. Read our complete Palermo guide.
FAQ about La Cuba
What is La Cuba in Palermo?
La Cuba is a 12th-century Arab-Norman royal pleasure pavilion built by William II of Sicily in 1180 as part of the Genoardo garden complex west of Palermo. It is UNESCO-inscribed as part of the Arab-Norman Palermo World Heritage Site and is the most architecturally pure example of the Islamic qubba (domed pavilion) tradition in Italy.
Is La Cuba worth visiting?
Yes La Cuba is one of the most undervisited significant monuments in Palermo and provides the specific complement to La Zisa that completes the Genoardo Arab-Norman programme. The Arabic dedicatory inscription, the Islamic architectural facade and the Boccaccio connection together make it a building of specific cultural significance beyond its modest size. The near-absence of other visitors makes the architectural encounter more rewarding than most comparable monuments in Sicily.
How does La Cuba differ from La Zisa?
La Zisa is the principal palace of the Genoardo complex larger, more elaborate, with the muqarnas hall and the water programme and the museum. La Cuba is the secondary pavilion smaller, more purely residential, originally surrounded by a fishpond and more directly an expression of the Islamic pleasure pavilion form at its most concentrated. The two buildings are complementary rather than interchangeable; visiting both provides the complete Genoardo programme.
The Pavilion on the Water
La Cuba was built to be seen from the water the boat approaching across the Genoardo fishpond, the reflection of the blind arcading in the still surface, the Arabic inscription visible above the waterline as the visitor approached the entrance. The water is gone. The fishpond has been drained and built over for 700 years. The barracks courtyard that now encloses the building provides a setting of complete disconnection from the original landscape programme. And yet the building itself survives the Islamic facade with its pointed arches, the Arabic inscription of the Norman king who chose to dedicate his pleasure pavilion in the language of the tradition that produced it, the specific form of the qubba translated to Sicilian limestone by craftsmen who knew what a pleasure pavilion was supposed to feel like. The water is the only thing missing. The architecture still describes the water perfectly.
For the complete Arab-Norman programme, read our La Zisa guide, our Cappella Palatina guide and our Norman Sicily heritage guide.
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