Palermo (Palermu in Sicilian) is an Italian town of 656,361 inhabitants, capital of the province of Palermo and the Sicilian Region.

See the Sicilian Regional Assembly, is the fifth Italian city in population after Rome, Milan, Naples and Turin, and the thirty-first at the European level is also the main urban center of Sicily. The metropolitan area of Palermo, the Sicilian capital, and that includes 26 other municipalities with a population of 1,040,871 inhabitants.

The whole history gave her a great artistic and architectural heritage that ranges from the remains of walls to reach the Punic Art Nouveau villas, from residences in Arab-Norman style, neoclassic baroque churches and theaters. For reasons of cultural, artistic and economic was one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean and today is one of the main tourist destinations in the region of southern Italy.

In 1860 came the landing of Garibaldi at Marsala, from there, with the help of the Sicilians, who had risen in the meantime, began to conquer the island in the name of the unification of Italy. Between 1860 and 1866 the city was subject to several fights and riots, which destroyed more than a few architectural structures.

Following the unification of Italy, the municipality of Palermo undertook the construction of some important architectural works: the cutting of Via Roma and the construction of two theaters more representative of the city, Massimo and Politeama.
The magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino

In the first decades of the twentieth century, Palermo went through an era Florida, a short but intense period of liberty. Not affected by the First World War, Palermo was badly damaged by bombing during World War II, to be occupied in July 1943 by Allied troops under General George Smith Patton.

The twentieth century was also characterized by the development of the Mafia: the fight against Cosa Nostra were affected, among others, Boris Giuliano, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, president of the Sicilian Region Pier Santi Mattarella, magistrates Giovanni Falcone , Paolo Borsellino, Gaetano Costa and Rocco Chinnici, the priest of the district of Palermo Brancaccio, Don Pino Puglisi and cinisense Peppino Impastato.

Palermo is now a major business centers and businesses around the Mediterranean