The population of Palermo is estimated at 130,000; of this number the nobility, clergy, and beggars constitute a large proportion. Many of the nobility are poor, and not a few are entirely without resources to support their dig nity. The streets arc infested with crowds of beggars of the most wretched and disgusting description. With re gard to climate, the heat in summer is very great, conti nuing for some months between 80° and 90° of Fahrenheit ; in winter it seldom falls below 50°. During the blowing of the Sirocco, the heat is very oppressive, the thermo meter being said to rise sometimes above 112°. The town has occasionally suffered severely from earthquakes.
Palermo was anciently called Panormus, a name which it derived, according to Diodorus Siculus, from the excel lence of its harbour. Sicilian writers trace its origin back to a very remote period ; but according to the account of Thucydides, which seems the most probable, it was ori ginally colonized by the Phoenicians, who were induced to settle here from the convenience of the port, and the beauty of the situation. It afterwards fell into the hands of the Greeks, and then into those of the Carthaginians, who made it the capital of their possessions in. the island, and
a considerable place of commerce. In the first Punic war it was taken with difficulty by the Romans, who treated it as a free and allied state, and permitted it to be governed by its own laws. It always continued faithful to the Ro man republic and empire, till, in 821, it fell under the power of the Saracens, who made it the metropolis of the island. In the eleventh century the Normans took it from the infidels, and made it the seat of their empire ; and since that period it has been considered as the capital of the islands. It is the seat of the viceroy and the Si cilian parliament, and the residence of the principal no bility; and is the see of an archbishop, who is primate of all Sicily. The chief magistrate of Palermo is commonly a nobleman of the highest rank ; his power is very exten sive, inferior only to that of the viceroy. He, along with six senators, has the whole management of the civil go vernment of the city, and is appointed yearly by the king or the viceroy. East Long. of observatory 13° 22', 0", North Lat. 38° 44".