No island in the Mediterranean has been fought over, colonised, conquered and reconquered by as many distinct civilisations as Sicily. The Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans, the Swabians, the Angevins, the Aragonese, the Spanish Bourbons and finally the unified Italian state each left architectural, cultural and gastronomic evidence on the island that is still physically present and physically accessible. A week in Sicily for a history lover is not a tour of monuments arranged in chronological order. It is an encounter with history as a living condition the Doric column visible in the wall of a baroque cathedral, the Arab muqarnas ceiling above Byzantine mosaics in a Norman chapel, the Aztec chocolate preparation still sold in the same city where the Spanish introduced it 500 years ago.
This guide organises the Sicilian historical programme by civilisation and by period covering what each major culture left behind, where the finest surviving evidence is located and how to plan an itinerary that addresses the full historical depth of the island.
In this guide
- Prehistoric Sicily the Bronze Age and before
- Phoenician Sicily
- Greek Sicily the temples and theatres
- Roman Sicily
- Arab Sicily the 9th to 11th centuries
- Norman Sicily the Arab-Norman synthesis
- Swabian Sicily Frederick II
- Baroque Sicily the 17th-century earthquake and rebuild
- A history lover’s Sicily itinerary
- The essential museums
- Practical tips
Prehistoric Sicily the Bronze Age and Before
The human occupation of Sicily extends to at least 30,000 BC the Addaura Cave on the slopes of Monte Pellegrino above Palermo contains incised rock engravings dated to the Upper Palaeolithic (approximately 10,000 to 12,000 BC) that represent one of the finest Palaeolithic art sites in the Mediterranean. The engravings, depicting human figures and animals in a programme of considerable dynamism and skill, are accessible by guided visit from the Museo Regionale Archeologico in Palermo.
The Bronze Age culture of the Aeolian Islands the Capo Graziano culture (1800 to 1400 BC) and the subsequent Milazzese and Ausonio phases is the most extensively documented prehistoric sequence in the Sicilian islands, preserved in the collections of the Museo Archeologico Eoliano in Lipari. The oval-house prehistoric village of Capo Milazzese on Panarea (accessible by foot from the island’s port) is the most atmospheric Bronze Age site in the archipelago the village on its headland with the sea on three sides, the houses preserved at foundation level and the specific isolation of a Bronze Age community on a volcanic island. Read our complete Panarea guide and Lipari guide.
The Pantalica necropolis near Syracuse 5,000 Bronze Age chamber tombs cut into the limestone canyon walls of the Anapo River is the most dramatically scaled prehistoric site in Sicily and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Read our complete Syracuse guide.
Phoenician Sicily
The Phoenicians established trading posts on the western coast of Sicily from approximately 800 BC Motya (Mozia) on the lagoon island near Marsala, Panormus (Palermo) and Soluntum (east of Palermo) being the three principal Phoenician settlements. Motya is the most significant surviving Phoenician site in Sicily the island in the Stagnone lagoon near Marsala retains the remains of the ancient city walls, the sacred precinct (tophet), the industrial quarter and the causeway connecting the island to the mainland. The Museo Whitaker on the island houses the finest collection of Phoenician objects in Sicily, including the extraordinary “Giovinetto di Mozia” the marble statue of a young man in a clinging garment, possibly the most debated and most beautiful single archaeological object in Sicilian museums.
The Soluntum site (Solunto) on the hillside east of Palermo, overlooking the sea, preserves the remains of the Hellenised Phoenician city street grid, houses, the agora in a landscape of considerable atmospheric quality. Read our complete Marsala guide.
Greek Sicily the Temples and Theatres
Greek Sicily (734 to 241 BC) is the most intensely documented and most monumentally impressive of the historical periods the temples, theatres, urban grids and archaeological museums of the former Greek cities constitute the largest concentration of ancient Greek architectural heritage outside Greece itself. The essential Greek Sicily programme: the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento (seven temples, the finest collection of Greek religious architecture in the world outside the Athenian Acropolis), the Neapolis at Syracuse (the finest Greek theatre in Sicily, the limestone quarry-prison of the Athenian expedition), the unfinished temple at Segesta (the most atmospheric single ancient monument in the island), and Selinunte (the largest Greek archaeological park in the world by area, the fallen column drums of the destroyed temples still lying where the Carthaginian sappers left them in 409 BC).
The specific historical depth of Greek Sicily is not just architectural the Battle of Himera in 480 BC (where the Greek Sicilian forces defeated the Carthaginian invasion on the same day as Thermopylae and Salamis), the disastrous Athenian expedition against Syracuse in 415 to 413 BC (the most catastrophic military defeat in Athenian history), the career of Archimedes in Syracuse (who designed the war machines that held off the Roman siege for three years before his death in 212 BC) constitute some of the most significant episodes in ancient Mediterranean history, and they all happened in Sicily. Read our complete Greek temples guide and Valley of the Temples guide.
👉 GREEK SICILY GUIDED TOUR VALLEY OF THE TEMPLES AND SELINUNTE
A full-day guided tour of the finest Greek archaeological sites in Sicily the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento with the almond blossom in spring or the winter solitude, and the fallen temple columns of Selinunte. Expert archaeological commentary throughout.
👉SEE THE BEST VALLEY OF THE TEMPLES TOUR HERE
Roman Sicily
Roman Sicily (241 BC to approximately 440 AD) left two monuments of the first rank and a broader archaeological legacy of considerable interest. The Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina the 4th-century AD imperial hunting villa with 3,500 square metres of virtually intact polychrome floor mosaic is the most important Roman site in Sicily and one of the most significant in the world. The mosaic programme covers every room of the villa with hunting scenes, mythological subjects, the famous “Bikini Girls” athletic competition mosaic and the 60-metre Great Hunt corridor depicting the capture and transportation of exotic animals from Africa to Rome. The preservation is extraordinary; the UNESCO inscription is entirely deserved. Read our complete Piazza Armerina guide.
The Roman amphitheatre at Syracuse (adjacent to the Greek theatre in the Neapolis archaeological park) and the Roman theatre at Taormina (originally a Greek theatre substantially modified for Roman gladiatorial and spectacle use) are the other major Roman monuments in Sicily. The Morgantina archaeological site near Aidone preserves the most complete Hellenistic-Roman town grid in Sicily, with the agora, theatre and street pattern partially excavated and accessible.
Arab Sicily the 9th to 11th Centuries
The Arab emirate of Sicily (827 to 1072) was one of the most sophisticated and most cosmopolitan polities in 10th-century Europe a multicultural society where Arab, Byzantine Greek and Jewish communities coexisted, where the arts and sciences flourished and where Palermo grew into one of the largest and richest cities in the western Mediterranean. The Arab physical legacy in Sicily is primarily architectural and agricultural rather than monumental the Arab buildings were mostly replaced or transformed by the Normans but the traces are everywhere: the city gate names of Palermo (Porta dei Greci, Porta dei Normanni the Norman gates built on Arab foundations), the street pattern of the historic centre (the irregular Arab urban maze), the place names across the island (the Ziza from al-Aziz, Alcamo from al-Qami, Marsala from Marsa Allah), the agricultural vocabulary (the giummara palm, the arancia orange, the zafferano saffron all Arab introductions).
The most direct surviving Arab architectural legacy is the La Zisa palace in Palermo the pleasure palace built by the Normans in the Arab style, with muqarnas vaulting and paradise garden layout, now housing the Museum of Islamic Art. The Favara palace (now partially restored) and the geographically documented positions of the Arab summer residences in the Conca d’Oro provide the archaeological evidence for the Arab palatial programme that the Norman conquerors absorbed and continued. Read our complete Norman Sicily guide.
Norman Sicily the Arab-Norman Synthesis
The Norman kingdom of Sicily (1072 to 1194) produced the most extraordinary artistic synthesis in the history of the medieval Mediterranean the Arab-Norman style that combined Byzantine mosaics, Arab muqarnas ceilings and Norman structural geometry in a single architectural programme that exists nowhere else on earth. The nine UNESCO-inscribed monuments of the Arab-Norman Palermo serial site (the Cappella Palatina, the Palazzo dei Normanni, Monreale Cathedral, Cefalù Cathedral, La Martorana, San Cataldo, La Zisa and the Palermo Cathedral) constitute the finest surviving evidence of this synthesis and the most concentrated programme of medieval art and architecture in Italy.
The Cappella Palatina inside the Palazzo dei Normanni is the supreme single monument 6,340 square metres of gold-ground Byzantine mosaic, an Arab muqarnas wooden ceiling above the nave and the Norman structural geometry of the building itself, all in the same room, simultaneously. Nothing like it exists anywhere else in the world. Read our complete Cappella Palatina guide, Monreale guide and Cefalù guide.
👉 ARAB-NORMAN PALERMO GUIDED TOUR UNESCO HERITAGE SITES WITH EXPERT COMMENTARY
A guided walking tour of Palermo’s Arab-Norman UNESCO World Heritage sites the Cappella Palatina, the Palazzo dei Normanni, La Martorana and San Cataldo with a specialist guide who explains the three-civilisation synthesis that makes these monuments unique in world architecture.
👉SEE THE BEST ARAB-NORMAN PALERMO GUIDED TOUR HERE
Swabian Sicily Frederick II
Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (1194 to 1250) Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily, King of Jerusalem, the “Wonder of the World” (Stupor Mundi) as his contemporaries called him ruled from Sicily the most sophisticated court in 13th-century Europe, where Arabic, Greek, Latin and Italian were all spoken, where Islamic scholars, Jewish philosophers, Christian theologians and the first Italian poets (the Sicilian School, the origin of the Italian literary language) coexisted under the patronage of a ruler who was genuinely multilingual and genuinely intellectually curious. Frederick’s specific Sicilian legacy is less architecturally visible than the Norman programme that preceded it but culturally it is immense the Sicilian School of poetry, developed at Frederick’s court, produced the first vernacular Italian literature and directly influenced Dante and Petrarch.
The Castel Maniace at the southern tip of Ortigia island in Syracuse Frederick’s fortified palace-castle built in 1232, one of the finest examples of Swabian military architecture in Sicily is the most directly accessible Frederick II monument. Read our complete Ortigia guide.
Baroque Sicily the 1693 Earthquake and Rebuild
The earthquake of January 11th, 1693 magnitude 7.4, the most destructive earthquake in Sicilian recorded history destroyed 45 towns in the Val di Noto and killed approximately 60,000 people. The rebuild that followed over the next 50 years produced the most concentrated and the most architecturally coherent baroque urban programme in Italy the nine UNESCO-inscribed Val di Noto baroque towns (Noto, Ragusa, Modica, Scicli, Caltagirone, Catania, Palazzolo Acreide, Militello Val di Catania and Occhiala) rebuilt from scratch in the exuberant late baroque style of the period, using the local golden limestone in a unified architectural programme that has no equivalent elsewhere in Europe.
Noto is the finest single baroque town the entire Corso Vittorio Emanuele constructed in one 50-year programme on a grid plan, the facades in perfect stylistic unity, the golden limestone catching the afternoon light with a warmth that makes the street the most photographed in southeastern Sicily. Ragusa Ibla and Catania provide the baroque programme at a larger urban scale. Read our complete guides to Noto, Ragusa and Catania.
A History Lover’s Sicily Itinerary
Days 1 and 2 Palermo: Arab-Norman and Phoenician. Cappella Palatina (morning, pre-booked), La Martorana and San Cataldo in Piazza Bellini, La Zisa palace and museum of Islamic art. Day 2: Monreale Cathedral (the full mosaic programme and the cloister). Evening: the Palermo Museo Archeologico Regionale (the Phoenician and Greek collections from western Sicily). Read our complete Palermo 2-day guide.
Day 3 Motya and Selinunte. Drive west to the Stagnone lagoon near Marsala for Motya island (the Phoenician city and the Giovinetto marble statue). Afternoon: Selinunte the largest Greek park in the world, the fallen temple columns of the Carthaginian destruction. Overnight near Selinunte or Marsala.
Day 4 Agrigento. Valley of the Temples in the morning light (Temple of Concordia, Temple of Juno, the Agrigento Archaeological Museum). Afternoon: the Scala dei Turchi on the coast west of Agrigento. Overnight in the Agrigento area.
Day 5 Piazza Armerina. Villa Romana del Casale the 3,500 square metres of Roman floor mosaic, the most important Roman site in Sicily. Afternoon: the medieval town of Piazza Armerina itself. Drive to Syracuse.
Days 6 and 7 Syracuse and Ortigia. Day 6: Neapolis Archaeological Park (Greek theatre, Roman amphitheatre, Ear of Dionysius, Latomia del Paradiso). Day 7: Ortigia island the Cathedral with Greek temple columns visible in the nave walls, the Castel Maniace (Frederick II), the Museo Archeologico Paolo Orsi (the finest Greek archaeological museum in Sicily). Read our complete Syracuse guide.
Days 8 and 9 Val di Noto baroque. Noto (Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the morning light), Modica (baroque and the Bonajuto cold-process Aztec chocolate), Ragusa Ibla (Montalbano and the baroque skyline). Read our complete guides to Noto and Modica.
Days 10 and 11 Taormina and Segesta. Taormina Greek theatre and the view of Etna from above. Day 11: drive to Segesta (the most atmospheric ancient site in Sicily, the unfinished temple in its valley). Return to Palermo for departure. Read our complete Segesta guide and Taormina guide.
The Essential Museums
The finest Sicilian museums for the history lover: the Museo Regionale Archeologico Antonio Salinas in Palermo (the comprehensive western Sicily collection including the Selinunte metope reliefs and the Phoenician programme); the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi in Syracuse (the finest Greek Sicily collection, covering the eastern coast programme); the Museo Archeologico Eoliano in Lipari (the finest prehistoric Mediterranean island collection and the largest collection of ancient theatrical masks in the world); and the Museo Regionale di Messina (the Caravaggio paintings alongside the history of the Strait).
The Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo houses the finest Sicilian medieval and Renaissance art collection the Francesco Laurana marble bust of Eleanor of Aragon and the anonymous “Triumph of Death” fresco (mid-15th century) are the two objects most consistently cited by art historians as the finest individual works in any Sicilian museum. Read our complete Palermo guide.
Practical Tips for History Lovers in Sicily
A rental car is essential for the full history programme the Greek sites (Selinunte, Segesta, Agrigento), the Roman villa at Piazza Armerina, the Phoenician island of Motya and the Pantalica necropolis are all car-dependent. Read our complete how to get around Sicily guide.
Book the Cappella Palatina and the Villa Romana del Casale in advance. Both have timed-entry systems that reduce peak-hour availability to walk-up visitors. The Cappella Palatina books out days or weeks ahead in peak season; the Villa Romana del Casale fills quickly on summer weekends.
The best history lover’s Sicily season is April to June and September to October comfortable temperatures for the archaeological sites, no crowd pressure and the specific light quality (golden hour longer, more directional) that makes the ancient stone and the baroque limestone most photogenic. Read our complete best time to visit Sicily guide.
The Island That History Made
Sicily is not simply an island with a long history. It is an island whose history is still physically present in the daily environment the Doric column in the wall of the Syracuse cathedral, the Arabic water channels that still irrigate the Conca d’Oro, the Norman chapel inside the Arab palace, the Aztec chocolate sold from a shop opened in 1880. The accumulation of civilisations on this island did not produce a layered archaeological record that requires excavation to access. It produced a living environment where 2,800 years of occupation are visible simultaneously, without having to dig. For a history lover, this is the most specific gift that any Mediterranean destination can offer.
For the complete cultural Sicily picture, read our Norman Sicily guide, our Greek temples guide, our Sicily film locations guide and our 2-week Sicily itinerary.
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