Piazza della Vittoria

Piazza della Vittoria is a public square in Palermo’s Albergheria district, between the Palazzo dei Normanni and Palermo Cathedral. Villa Bonanno garden brings greenery to a setting layered over Phoenician, Greek, Arab, and Roman remains.

Sixteenth-century demolitions created the Piano del Palazzo Reale, used for public parades and large gatherings. Archaeologist Francesco Saverio Cavallari uncovered two Roman patrician houses here in December 1868. One villa preserves a trapezoidal peristyle of nearly 180 square metres, with nine columns along its long sides and six along its shorter sides. A mosaic depicting the Hunt of Alexander decorated the northern exedra, while a blue-lined fountain stood beside the southern portico.

The second house contains a vestibule mosaic showing Neptune riding a chariot, alongside rooms that may have served as baths. Six sandstone plinths remain at the centre of the peristyle, although one has disappeared. Other mosaics are preserved at Palermo’s Regional Archaeological Museum.