 The church is notable for its brilliant red domes, which show clearly the persistence of Arab influences in Sicily at the time of its reconstruction in the 12th century, the Arab-Norman culture.In her 1882 "Diary of an Idle Woman in Sicily", Frances Elliot described it as "... totally oriental... it would fit well in Baghdad or Damascus".However, the red colour of the domes are not original, as they were restored in the present way at the end of the nineteenth century by an architect who found pieces of red plaster on the domes and therefore decided to paint all the domes in red.