Vicari

Vicari is a small inland village in the Palermitan hinterland, set on the rocky height of Monte Sant’Angelo and looking out over a valley framed by countryside and almond groves. Its elevated position gives the village a compact, watchful character, with a historic centre shaped by rural life, local devotion and the long memory of its strategic role on routes towards Palermo.

The site has ancient roots and was known to the Greeks and Romans as Bicara. Later layers of Byzantine, Arab, Norman and feudal history helped define its identity, while medieval power passed through families such as the Chiaramonte and, later, the Bonanno Princes of Cattolica. Rather than feeling like a place tied to a single period, Vicari carries the imprint of several Sicilian worlds in one small hilltop setting.

Today, its distinctiveness lies in that combination of height, countryside and layered history: a village where the landscape still explains why this place mattered, and where the memory of Arab-Norman Sicily and feudal Palermo remains closely woven into local life.