Palermo - Santo Spirito / Chiesa del Vespro

Following the Corso Tukåry westward from the main station, turn left into Via del Vespro and the Sant'Orsol Cemetery. Here stands the Chiesa del Vespro or Santo Spirito, in front of which the "Sicilian Vespers" (the murder or expulsion of all the French in Palermo and later in the whole of Sicily) began on 31st March 1282 and from which event it obtained its second name. It was this event which inspired Verdi to write his opera of the same name. The church was built in 1173-78 by Archbishop Walter of the Mill (Gualterius Offamilius) as the oratorium of a Cistercian abbey, outside the city walls as they were at the time. In the years that followed it was frequently altered, especially when the viceroy Domenico Caracciolo had the abbey