271 
PALERM O. 
perfect date of prefervation. An ambaffador from Mo¬ 
rocco, who was there fome time ago, was much druck 
with it, and faid the plan of the building was fmiilar to 
thofe of fuch edifices in his own country. A large apart¬ 
ment, in the third dory, he pronounced to be the council- 
chamber. The fummit of this edifice commands a drik- 
ing view of the beautiful and fertile plain and garden of 
Palermo, furrounded by lofty and majeftic mountains, 
broken into the mod piCturefque forms, together with 
the port, fea, &c. and the adjacent iflands. 
This city, according to Brydone’s account, is greatly 
fuperior to Naples in beauty and elegance. Although it 
is not fo large, yet the regularity, the uniformity, and the 
neatnefs, of its dreets and buildings, render it much more 
pleafing; it is full of people, who have moflly an air of 
affluence and gaiety. It hands near the extremity of a 
kind of natural amphitheatre, formed by very high and 
rocky mountains; and the country that lies between the 
city and thefe mountains is one of the riched and mod 
beautiful fpots in the world. The whole appears a mag¬ 
nificent garden, filled with fruit-trees of every fpecies, 
and watered by clear fountains and rivulets, that form a 
variety of windings through this delightful plain. From 
the Angularity of this fituation, as well as from the rich- 
nefs of the foil, Palermo has had many flattering epithets 
beflowed upon it, particularly by the poets; who have 
denominated it Conca d'Orn, the Golden Shell, exprefling 
both its fituation and richnefs. It has likewife been 
ftyled A urea Balli, Hortus Sicilia, &c. and, to include all 
thefe together, the lading term Felix has been added to 
its name, by which it is even didinguifhed in the maps. 
Palermo is built upon a very regular plan: its two 
great flreets interfeCl each other in the centre of the city, 
where they form a beautiful and regular fquare called the 
Ottangolo, adorned with very handfome and uniform 
buildings. The centre of this fquare commands the 
whole of thefe noble dreets and the four great gates of 
the city which terminate them, and which are at the dif- 
tance of about half a mile; the diameter of the city being 
no more than a mile. Thefe are elegant, pieces of archi¬ 
tecture richly adorned ; particularly the Porta Nova and 
Porta Felice, that terminate the flreet called the Corfo, 
which runs fouth-wed and north-eafl. The fmaller dreets, 
in general, run parallel to thefe great ones. The Porta 
Felice (which is by much the handfomed of the gates) 
opens to the Marino, a delightful and much-frequented 
walk, bounded on one fide by the wall of the city, and on 
the other by the fea, from which there is, in the hotted 
weather, an agreeable breeze. In the centre of the Ma¬ 
rino there is an elegant kind of temple, which ferves as an 
orchedra for muiic in the fummer-months. It fliould 
have been mentioned, that the mode of building in this 
country differs -greatly from ours. The ground-floor, 
even of magnificent palaces, frequently conlids of fliops : 
in each building there is a common dair-cafe, and each 
ftage of apartments forms, as it were, a feparate refidence, 
being generally inhabited by different families ; and this 
is always the cafe, except in the refidences of fome of the 
principal nobility 
Of the backward date of literature in Palermo we may 
form fome idea, from the circumdance of there being only 
two regular bookfellers in a city which is twice as large 
as Edinburgh. Till of late years, the Sicilian has been 
accounted a mere dialed! of the Italian, and printed com- 
pofitions have alrnod always appeared in the latter; but 
attempts are now making to raife the former from this 
comparative degradation, and to change it from a pro¬ 
vincial to a national tongue. A Sicilian dictionary of 
large fize has been printed, and feveral poets have fet the 
example of publifhing in their native language. 
This city contains, befides an univerfity, many churches, 
abbeys, feminaries, convents, and liofpitals. Many of the 
churches are extremely rich and magnificent. The ca¬ 
thedral (Madre Chiefa) is a very venerable Gothic build¬ 
ing, of a large fize, fupported within by eighty columns 
of oriental granite, and divided into many chapels, fome 
of which are extremely rich, particularly that of St. Ro- 
falia, the patronefs of Palermo, who is held here in 
greater veneration than even the Virgin Mary herfelf. 
Her relics are preferved in a large filver box, curioufly 
wrought, and enriched with precious dones. Thefe per¬ 
form many miracles, and are looked upon as the greated 
treafure of the city. The Jefuits’ church is Angularly 
magnificent; and the Chiefa del Pallazzo is entirely co¬ 
vered over with ancient Mofaic. The church of Mon¬ 
reale, about five miles didant from this city, is the next 
in dignity in the ifland, after the cathedral of Palermo. 
The population of this city is much greater, in propor¬ 
tion to its fize, than that of Naples ; and the number of 
carriages is adonilhing. One of the granded exhibitions 
is that of the fead of St. Rofalia. Palermo had anciently 
two ports, mentioned by Polybius and Diodorus; which 
were dedroyed by an earthquake in 1327. At prefent it 
has tvvo ; one for barks, and another for veffels of war, with 
a light-houfe at its entrance. There is a magnificent 
cadle built near the fea-fide, wherein the viceroy refides 
fix months in the year; and his prefence draws a great 
number of nobility to this place. This city has buffered 
greatly by earthquakes, particularly in 1693 ; and it was 
greatly damaged by a fire in 1730, when a magazine of 
powder, containing 400 tons, was blown up. Palermo 
exports, in favourable years, about 40,000 bales of lilk : 
it has moreover fome manufactures of filks and duffs. Its 
population is eflimated at 200,000 perfons. 
It is very remarkable, that the dead in Palermo are 
never buried. Captain Sutherland gives the following 
account of this circumdance, in his Tour to Condanti- 
nople. The dead bodies are carried to the Capuchin 
convent, which is one of the larged in Italy; and there, 
after the funeral-fervice is performed, they are dried in a 
dove heated by a compofition of lime, which makes the 
lkin adhere to the bones. They are then placed ereCt in 
niches, and fadened to the wall by the back or neck. A 
piece of coarfe drab is thrown over the flioulders and 
round the waid; and their hands are tied together, hold¬ 
ing a piece of paper with their epitaph, which is Amply 
their names, age, and when they died. We of courfe 
(fays captain Sutherland) vifited this famous repofitory; 
and it is natural to fuppofe that fo many corpfes would 
imprefs one with reverence and aw’e. It was nearly dufk 
when we arrived at the convent. We pafled the chapel, 
where one of the order had jud finiffled faying vefpers by 
the gloomy glimmering of a dying lamp. We were then 
conduced through a garden, where the yew, the cyprefs, 
and the barren orange, obfeured the remaining light; and. 
where melancholy filence is only didurbed by the hollow 
murmuring of a feeble water-fall.' All thefe circum- 
flances tuned our minds for the difmalfcene which we were 
going to behold ; but we had dill to defeend a flight of 
fteps impervious to the fun ; and thefe, at lad, conveyed 
us to the dreary manfion of the dead. - But, (will you be¬ 
lieve me?) notwithdanding the chilling jeene through 
which we had pafled, notwithdanding our being in the 
middof more than a thoufand lifelefs bodies, neither our 
refpeCt for the dead, nor for the holy fathers who conducted 
11s, could prevent our finding. The phyfiognomies of the 
deceafed are fo ridiculoufly mutilated, and their mufcles 
fo contracted and diflorted in the drying, that no French 
mimic could equal their grimaces. Mod of the corpfes 
have lofi the lower part of the nofe; their necks are gene¬ 
rally a little twided; their mouths drawn awry in one di¬ 
rection, their notes in another; their eyes funk and 
pointed different ways; one ear perhaps turned up, the 
other drawn down. The relations of the deceafed are 
bound to fend two wax-tapers every year for the ufe of 
the convent; in default of which, the corpfe is taken- 
down,and thrown into the charnel-houfe. Were it not 
for the number of vacancies occafioned by the non-pay¬ 
ment of this flipend, the capuchins would be unable to 
find niches for the number of men who mud die every 
year 
