Cefalù (Italian: [tʃefaˈlu]; Sicilian: Cifalù), classically known as Cephaloedium (Ancient Greek: Κεφαλοίδιον, romanized: Kephaloídion), is a city and comune in the Italian Metropolitan City of Palermo, located on the Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily about 70 km (43 mi) east of the provincial capital and 185 km (115 mi) west of Messina.

[8] It is possible that Cephaloedium was at this time merely a fortress (φρούριον, phroúrion) of Magna Graecia belonging to the Himeraeans and may have been peopled by refugees after the destruction of Himera, who settled alongside the native Sicels.

Its name first appears in history at the time of the Carthaginian expedition under Himilco, 396 BC, when that general concluded a treaty with the Himeraeans and the inhabitants of Cephaloedium.

[11] In the First Punic War, it was reduced by the Roman fleet under Aulus Atilius Calatinus and Scipio Nasica, 254 BC, but by treachery and not by force of arms.

[12] Cicero speaks of it as apparently a flourishing town, enjoying full municipal privileges; it was, in his time, one of the civitates decumanae which paid the tithes of their corn in kind to the Roman state and suffered severely from the oppressions and exactions of Gaius Verres.

This occurred among many cities during the Byzantine era, as the Mediterranean was no longer solely controlled by the empire and was subject to Arab incursions.

In 1131, Roger II, king of Sicily, transferred it from its almost inaccessible position to one at the foot of the rock, where there was a small but excellent harbor.

[18] Some remains of the ancient city are still visible, on the summit of the rock; but the nature of the site proves that it could never have been more than a small town, and probably owed its importance only to its almost impregnable position.

Fazello speaks of the remains of the walls as still existing in his time, as well as those of a temple of Doric architecture, of which the foundations only are now visible.

But the most curious monument still remaining of the ancient city is an edifice, consisting of various apartments, and having the appearance of a palace or domestic residence, but constructed wholly of large irregular blocks of limestone, in the style commonly called polygonal or Cyclopean.

[citation needed] The doorways are of finely-cut stone, and of Greek type, and the date, though uncertain, cannot, from the careful jointing of the blocks, be very early.

[17] This building, which is almost unique of its kind, is the more remarkable, from its being the only example of this style of masonry, so common in Central Italy, which occurs in the island of Sicily.