Palermo
was founded in the 8th century BC
by Phoenician
tradesmen around a natural
harbour on the north-western
coast of Sicily. Palermo
is widely considered to be the
most conquered city in the world,
as shown in the following
article.
Palermo
remained a Phoenician
city until the First Punic War
(264-241 BC), when Sicily fell
under Roman rule. When the Roman
Empire was split, Sicily and
Palermo came under the rule of
the Eastern Byzantine
Empire.
In
the 9th century, Sicily was
divided into two prefectures by
the Byzantines. By 878 all of
Sicily, except for a few
Byzantine enclaves near Taormina,
was controlled by the Saracens.
In 905 they captured those too.
The Arab rulers moved Sicily's
capital to Palermo
where it has been ever
since
Sicily
in 1194 fell under the control of the Holy
Roman Empire. After an interval of
Angevin
rule (1266-1282), Sicily came under the
house of Aragon and later, in (1479), the
kingdom of Spain.
Sicily's
unification (1734) with the Bourbon-ruled
kingdom of Naples as the kingdom.
Palermo
rebelled in 1848 and held out against the
Neapolitan crown until May
1849.
The
Italian Risorgimento and Sicily's
annexation (1860) to the kingdom of Italy
gave Palermo
a second chance.
Palermo
survived almost the entire fascist period
unscathed, but during the Allied invasion
of Sicily
in July 1943 it suffered heavy
damage.
The
importance of Palermo
got another boost when Sicily
became (1947) an autonomous region with
extended self-rule.
