Monreale

Town in northwest Sicily, 8 km/5 mi southwest of Palermo, built on a hill 370 m/1,214 ft above sea level; population (1991) 26,300. Monreale has a Norman archiepiscopal cathedral containing Sicily's first Byzantine mosaics, which cover the walls of the nave and include a huge head of Christ over the altar. The 12th-century Benedictine abbey was founded by the Norman king William II of Sicily.

The massacre of the French Angevin rulers by Sicilians known as the Sicilian Vespers began on the road between Monreale and Palermo in 1282.