Palermo, formerly the capital of Sicily, now in point of population the fifth city of Italy, an archbishopric, and a seaport. It stands in the north-west corner of the island, on a bay that faces east, and at the mouth of a fertile valley called the Conca d'Oro ('Golden Shell'), 120 miles by rail W. of Messina, and occupies a picturesque site, being backed by mountains—on the north by Mount Pellegrino, with a (pilgrimage) grotto chapel (1624) to St Rosalia, whose festival is one of the great annual events of the city. The streets are for the most part handsome, and there are many fine old houses. The oldest public buildings date from the Norman period, and belong to two styles of architecture—Saracen and Byzantine. The most conspicuous of them all is the cathedral of St Rosalia, built (1169–85) by an Englishman, Archbishop Walter; it contains sepulchral monuments to Roger I., the emperors Henry VI. and
Frederick II., and in the crypt the tombs of the archbishops. Others to be named are the chapel (1143) in the royal palace, with magnificent mosaics; the Norman hall, in the same pile; and the churches of Martorana (with fine mosaics), St John of the Hermits (1132), and St Cataldo; and the mansions of Ziza, Cuba, La Favara, and Minnerno, all outside the city. There are close upon three hundred churches and chapels in Palermo. The royal palace, built by Roger I., is principally of Spanish construction; in it Piazzi established his observatory. The other public buildings—archbishop's palace, town-house, law-courts, university, arsenal, &c.—do not call for particular mention. The university (1447) has 70 teachers and 1100 students, with schools of engineering, fine arts, conveyancing, &c. There are also a national museum, the town library (1775) with 141,000 vols. and 2640 MSS., and the national library (1804) with 110,000 vols. and 12,000 MSS. Industry is little developed; machinery, essences, sumach, turnery, iron-founding, books, gloves, and shoes represent almost the only branches. But Palermo is an important seaport, with a large, though not growing, trade. Oranges, lemons, dried fruits, sumach, tartar, grain, oils, manna, sulphur, wine, animal produce, and lemon-juice are the principal exports, and average £1,457,700 per annum. The imports—grain and vegetables, cottons and woollens, coals, live-stock, iron, timber, groceries, silk, hides, petroleum, machinery, linen, metals, and glassware—fell from £1,439,515 in 1887 to £732,167 in 1889. The bulk of this trade is with Great Britain, France, and the United States. There is also a coasting trade—imports, from 3 to 3½ millions sterling; exports, about 1 million sterling. Some 3500 vessels of 1,200,000 tons enter every year, an average of 430,000 tons being British and 685,600 tons Italian. Pop. (1894) 276,000. The first we know of Palermo, the ancient Panormus, is that it was a Phœnician city, and the stronghold of Carthage in Sicily. It was conquered successively by Pyrrhus (276 B.C.), the Romans (254 B.C.), the Vandals (440 A.D.), Belisarius (535), the Saracens (835), the Pisans (1063), and the Normans from Apulia (1071). Henceforward it was the capital of the kingdom of Sicily (q.v.), first of the Norman kingdom, then of that of the Angevins and their Spanish successors. It suffered severely from earthquakes in 1693, 1726, and 1823. The city revolted against the Bourbon kings of Naples in 1820 and 1848, and was freed from them in 1860 by Garibaldi. But since then it has been only a provincial capital.—The province of Palermo has an area of 1985 sq. m. and a pop. (1895) of 819,765.
See the excellent guidebook of Gsell Fels; Morso, Descrizione di Palermo Antico (1827); Schubring, Historische Topographie von Panormus (1870); Springer, Mittelalterliche Kunst in Palermo (1869); Holm, Studii di Storia Palermitana (1880); Freeman, Historical Essays (3d series, 1879), and his History of Sicily (1891).
Palestine.—I. History.—The name of Palestine is an illustration of the part taken for the whole. In the song of Moses (Exod. xv. 14) sorrow falls upon Palestina, and amazement upon Edom at the coming of Israel. Palestine was to Moses as it was afterwards to Isaiah and to Joel, to Herodotus, to the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Assyrians, to Josephus and to Jerome, simply the Plain of Philistia, the broad slip of coast inhabited by the Philistines. Milton restricts the word to this sense. The country has received various names at different times, with all of which we are familiar. It has been called Canaan, or the Land of Canaan, the Land simply, the Land of Israel, the Land of Promise, and the Holy Land, a name which, in the words of Quaresmin, 'though of later date than the rest, yet in excellency and dignity surpasses them all.'
The nations inhabiting this country at the time of the Conquest were, according to the list generally given, six in number. A seventh nation is added in one or two lists. These nations were the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites. The seventh were the Girgashites. The Canaanites—'low-landers'—occupied the country east and west of the highlands—that is to say, the seaboard and the valley of the Jordan; the Hittites, a branch of the great kingdom whose extent and history are only now beginning to be recovered, dwelt in what was afterwards Judæa, the Hivites in Samaria, the Perizzites in Galilee, the Amorites in the north, the Jebusites in and around Jerusalem. Of the Girgashites nothing is known. Other tribes there were—those of Moab, Ammon, Midian, and Edom on the east of Jordan, all of Semitic descent; the tall races—Rephaim, Zuzim, and Anakim; the Horim cave-dwellers; and there were the Amalekites, who defended the mountain-passes near Sinai, and the Philistines, of Egyptian origin; in later times they were called Cherethites, and at this day there is a village in Philistia called Keretiya.
The flood of conquest rolled over these tribes. When the invaders had settled down within the boundaries allotted to them, we find them fighting for their new possessions, being driven back in consolidating their position. The conquered people were nowhere exterminated: the Jebusites held their own in Jerusalem, the Amorites in Ephraim; the Philistines took and lost and retook Gaza and Ascalon. There are many who regard the fellahs of modern Syria as the direct descendants of the Perizzite, the Amorite, and the Hivite.
How long the Israelite tribal distinctions were kept up it is difficult to say. We find them strongly marked in the early history, but they grow fainter in the later books. It is not without significance that Solomon's twelve provinces corresponded mainly with the twelve tribes. During the term covered by the Book of Judges and part of Samuel there was no capital city and no central authority. The religious centre was shifted; the ark rested at Shiloh, at Nob, at Gibeon, and at Bethel. Jerusalem became the capital of David and Solomon, but on the foundation of the northern kingdom Shechem, Tirzah, and Samaria became successively its capital.
When the Jews returned from the great Captivity they occupied a territory extending from Jerusalem in the north to Beersheba in the south, and from Jericho in the east to Lachish in the west. The Philistines remained in undisturbed possession of their lands; the Idumæans were driven back to their deserts; on the north were the hostile Samaritans.
The Maccabean struggle for independence—a part of history which finds few students, yet a struggle heroic in its conduct and stupendous in its results—preserved the national existence. That there were Jews in the time of Herod, that there are Jews still, is due to the heroism of the immortal brothers.
The kingdom of Herod the Great covered the whole country divided into tribes by Joshua, with the exception of a small portion in the south-west and the tribe of Asher in the north. West of Jordan it contained Galilee, a province unknown by that name to the Old Testament; Samaria, also unknown before the Captivity; Judæa and Idumæa: east of the Jordan it contained Peraea, Gaulonitis, Auranitis, and Trachonitis—the ten cities of the Decapolis belonged partly to Peraea and partly to Gaulonitis. Of these provinces the most fertile and the most densely populated was