Date

Circa 1910

Byzantine dome to the left and Romanesque campanile to the right. The main entry to the church is still through the attached campanile, not through this portico. In a Greek–Arab document of 1143, preserved in the archives of the Cappella Palatina, Admiral George of Antioch (a Greek and a principle minister of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily) declares that he has erected the church of S Maria and spared no effort or expense in its decoration. In 1139 a convent of Benedictine nuns was founded in the nearby houses of the Martorana, where a small monastic centre may already have existed. In 1434 the church of S Maria was donated to the convent, which afterwards assumed its name. The original plan of the Martorana convent has been greatly altered; it now houses the faculty of architecture of Palermo University. By 1451 the church was in such a bad condition that the university requested the intervention of Alfonso I (reigned 1416-1458). From then until the 18th century it was subjected to numerous restorations. It has Norman, Romanesque and Byzantine elements and a Baroque portico (facade).