Cattedrale di Cefalù

This Norman cathedral rises against a great rock on the Sicilian coast and was built by a twelfth-century king who, legend says, vowed it after surviving a storm. Its apse holds a vast golden mosaic of Christ, considered among the finest Byzantine-style images in Italy. Twin towers and a fortified profile reflect its era. A distinctive detail is the towering mosaic figure of Christ in the half-dome, whose face gazes down the nave with an intensity that has drawn visitors for eight hundred years.