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Palermo is one of the major cities of Italy, and the historical and administrative capital of Sicily.

Human settlement in the Palermo area goes back to prehistoric times. It has one of the most ancient sites in Sicily: Interesting graffiti and prehistoric paintings were discovered in the Addaura grottoes in 1953 by archaeologist Jole Bovio Marconi. They portray dancing figures performing a propitiatory rite, perhaps shamans.

In the 8th c. BC Phoenicians established a flourishing merchant colony in the Palermo area. The relationship of the new city with the Siculi, the people living in the Eastern part of the Island involved both commerce and war. The first building in which soon became a great city was called Mabbonath ("lodging" in Phoenician). The settlement itself was known as Ziz (, ), meaning "Flower". It was the most important of the three colonies forming the "Phoenician Triangle" cited by Thucydides, the others being Motya and Soluntum.

Between the 8th and the 7th centuries BC, the Greeks colonized Sicily. They called the city Panormos ("All port") and traded with the Carthaginians. The two civilizations lived together in Sicily until the Roman conquest. Carthaginian coins from Palermo used the Greek name Panormos from the 5th century BC. The Greek colony at Panormos had two cores: the "Old Town" (Palepolis) between the two rivers Kemonia and Papirethos and the "New Town" (Neapolis). Curiously, early Naples was also divided in two parts with the same names. Its current name stems from the latter.

In the course of the Punic Wars Palermo was fought over by the Carthaginians and the Romans until, in 254 BC, the Roman fleet besieged the city. It eventually surrendered and the population had to pay a war tribute to save their liberty. Hasdrubal tried to take it back, but the Roman consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated him and imposed a lasting Roman rule over the town he knew as Panormus. In 247, Hamilcar camped with the Carthaginian army on Monte Pellegrino, then called Ercta. However this was in vain, as Palermo remained loyal to Rome. It therefore gained the titles of Praetura, the Golden Eagle, and the right to mint a coin of its own, as one of only five free cities in Sicily.

Panormus was a flourishing and beautiful city during the Golden Age of the Roman Republic and Empire. In Piazza Vittoria ("Victory's Square") notable palaces and mosaics have been discovered and a large theatre still existed in the Norman age. According to geographer Strabo, during the Roman Empire it provided large amounts of wheat for the capital. However, after the reign of Vespasian, it decayed, and in 445 was sacked by the King of Vandal Africa, Gaiseric. Later it was part of the territory of Odoacer and Theoderic's Ostrogoths. In 535, the Byzantine general Belisarius stormed the port, during Justinian I's program of reconquering Italy, which soon turned into the fierce and disastrous Gothic War. The Byzantine rule lasted until 831, when the Aghlabid Arabs, disembarked in Mazara del Vallo. The Arabs captured Palermo after a year long siege and made it the capital city of their Sicilian emirate.

After the Byzantines were betrayed by admiral Euphemius who fled to Tunisia in 827 and begged the Aghlabid leader Ziyadat Allah to help him there was a Muslim conquest of Sicily, putting in place the Emirate of Sicily. In general, the Arab rule was tolerant, and Jews also had their space and were allowed to prosper. The Arabs are also said to have left a lasting influence on Sicilian culture and especially "the Arab concept of the family",

After dynasty related quarrels however, there was a Christian reconquest in the form of the Normans from the Duchy of Normandy, descendants of the Vikings; the family who returned the city to Christianity, largely to the efforts of Robert Guiscard and his army, were called the Hautevilles. For more than two hundred years Palermo was the capital of a flourishing Islamic civilisation in Sicily. The population of the city during this period is uncertain, as figures given by Arab writers during the era were unreliable. Paul Bairoch estimated Palermo's population at 350,000 around the 11th century, while other historians like Stephan R. Epstein estimated it to be closer to 60,000. Based on al Maqdisi's statement that Palermo was larger than Old Cairo, Kenneth Meyer Setton put the figure above 100,000 but below 250,000. Traces of the ancient Arab domination can be seen still today. Muslim artifacts include the Kasr ("Castle"), on the cape of the Paleopolis, the district of the great mosque, the Kalsa ("Elected"), the emirs' seat along the sea, the area of the Schiavoni ("slaves"), crossed by the Papireto river; and, in the western region, the Moasker, the soldiers' quarter. However, the Arab emirate became increasingly torn by inner disputes and was a rather easy prey for the Normans, who had entered Sicily in 1061. In 1072, after four years of siege, Palermo fell to Count Roger I of Sicily, ending Muslim rule there.

The Normans restored Christianity as the official religion and declared Palermo to be the capital of the island. In 1130, Roger II was crowned King of Sicily in Palermo. Although Christian, the Normans were tolerant towards the Muslim population, which was a majority in Palermo, but not in Sicily. Jews also remained an important community. However, many mosques were turned into Christian churches. The high level of this multicultural civilization can be seen by the splendour of the new monuments that the new King had built in Palermo. These buildings, which include the church of the Marturana and the Palatine Chapel, show a fascinating mix of Arab, Byzantine and Norman influences. It was under Roger II of Sicily that his holdings of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula were promoted, from the County of Sicily into the Kingdom of Sicily; the kingdom was ruled from Palermo as its capital, with the king's court held at Palazzo dei Normanni. Much construction was undertaken during this period, such as the building of the Palermo Cathedral. The Kingdom of Sicily became one of the wealthiest states in Europe, as wealthy as the fellow Norman state, the Kingdom of England. Though the city's population had dropped to 150,000, it became the largest city in Europe, due to the larger decline in Constantinople's population. and magistrates such as Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. The latter was killed, together with five members of his escort, in a massive car bombing in Via D'Amelio in Palermo, in July 1992. as of 2012, this has been the last bloodbath in Palermo ordered by the Mafia.

Today, Palermo is a city of 720,000 inhabitants still struggling to recover from the devastation of the Second World War and the damage caused by decades of uncontrolled urban growth. Situated on one of the most beautiful promontories of the Mediterranean, Palermo is an important trading and business centre and the seat of a university frequented by many students from Islamic countries, as the city's relationship with the Muslim world never ceased. Palermo is connected to the mainland through an international airport and an increasing number of maritime links. However, land connections remain poor. This and other reasons have until now thwarted the development of tourism. This has been identified as the main resource to exploit for the city's recovery, the marvellous legacy of three millennia of history and folklore.