Erice (; scn, Èrici) is a historic
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares ...
and ''
comune
The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces ('' province''). The can ...
'' in the
province of Trapani,
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
, in southern
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
.
Geography
The main town of Erice is located on top of
Mount Erice, at around above sea level, overlooking the city of
Trapani, the low western coast towards
Marsala
Marsala (, local ; la, Lilybaeum) is an Italian town located in the Province of Trapani in the westernmost part of Sicily. Marsala is the most populated town in its province and the fifth in Sicily.
The town is famous for the docking of Gius ...
, the dramatic Punta del Saraceno and Capo San Vito to the north-east, and the
Aegadian Islands
The Aegadian Islands ( it, Isole Egadi; scn, Ìsuli Ègadi, la, Aegates Insulae; gr, Aἰγάται Νῆσοι, , the islands of goats) are a group of five small mountainous islands in the Mediterranean Sea off the northwest coast of Sicily, ...
on Sicily's north-western coast. Casa Santa forms part of Erice at the base of Mount Erice, immediately adjacent to Trapani. A cable car joins the upper and lower parts of Erice.
The bordering municipalities are
Buseto Palizzolo,
Paceco,
Trapani,
Valderice and
Custonaci
Custonaci ( Sicilian: ''Custunaci'') is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Trapani, south-Western Sicily, southern Italy-
Economy
The coast around Mount Cofano attracts tourists to the seaside village of Cornino.
References
...
. The hamlets (''
frazioni'') are Ballata, Casa Santa, Crocefissello,
Napola
National Political Institutes of Education (german: Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten; officially abbreviated NPEA, commonly abbreviated Napola for ''Nationalpolitische Lehranstalt'' meaning National Political Teaching Institute) were ...
, Pizzolungo, Rigaletta, San Cusumano and Torretta.
History
The ancient Greek name of Erice was Eryx ( in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
), and its foundation was associated with the eponymous Greek hero
Eryx. It was not a Greek colony, as the
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their his ...
ns founded it, but was largely
Hellenized. It was destroyed in the
First Punic War
The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and gr ...
by the
Carthaginians
The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the ...
, and from then on declined in importance.
Eryx was conquered by the
Aghlabids
The Aghlabids ( ar, الأغالبة) were an Arab dynasty of emirs from the Najdi tribe of Banu Tamim, who ruled Ifriqiya and parts of Southern Italy, Sicily, and possibly Sardinia, nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph, for about ...
in 831 and was renamed as Cebel Hamid (in Western sources Gebel Hamed, meaning Mountain of Hamid). It was ruled by the Arabs until the
Norman conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...
. In 1167 the Normans renamed it Monte San Giuliano, a name maintained until the 20th century.
20th Century
In 1934 the town changed its name from ''Monte San Giuliano'' to Erice.
During the Second World War a Luftwaffe Operations Centre (associated with ''
Zerstörergeschwader 26'' and ''
Jagdgeschwader 27'' which operated out of the nearby
Trapani–Milo Airport) was located on the slopes of Monte Erice from early 1943 until they were forced by Allied air raids to relocate.
Following the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 troops of the 2nd Battalion of the
505th Infantry Regiment Seventh Army under the command of Major Mark Alexander began on 22 July 1943 to climb up the side of Monte Erice in order to secure the town and its commanding position overlooking the surrounding countryside. As they did so they came under artillery fire from Italian forces stationed on the ramparts with one soldier being killed and another wounded. Realizing that the safest position was directly under the walls of town the lead troops took shelter there. Rather than waiting on artillery support to arrive the decision was then made for F Company to attack. However before the troops had come close enough to engage them the Italian forces signaled their surrender.
[
]
Main sights
In the northeastern portion of the city there are the remains of ancient Elymian
The Elymians ( grc-gre, Ἔλυμοι, ''Élymoi''; Latin: ''Elymi'') were an ancient tribal people who inhabited the western part of Sicily during the Bronze Age and Classical antiquity.
Origins
According to Hellanicus of Lesbos, the Elymian ...
and Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their his ...
n walls ( Cyclopean masonry) indicating different stages of settlement and occupation in antiquity.
There are two castles that remain in the city: Pepoli Castle, which dates from Saracen times, and the Castello di Venere ("Venus Castle"), dating from the Norman period, built on top of the ancient Temple of Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...
, where Venus Ericina was worshipped. According to legend, the temple was founded by Aeneas
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus (mythology), Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both ...
. It was well known throughout the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...
area in the ancient age, and an important cult
In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal ...
was celebrated in it. In his book ''On the Nature of Animals'', Aelian writes that animals chosen for sacrifice would voluntarily walk up to the altar to be killed.
A cable car (funivia) ran from 2005 to 2017, when it was closed due to a forest fire, from the outskirts of Trapani to the town of Erice. The cable car was rebuilt and reopened in June 2018.
Culture
Erice hosts scientific
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...
meetings at the Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana (,, uploaded 19 April 2013, retrieved 14 December 2019 ; born on 5 August 1906 – possibly dying after 1959) was an Italian theoretical physicist who worked on neutrino masses. On 25 March 1938, he disappeared under mysteri ...
center, organised by the controversial astrophysicist Antonino Zichichi.
There is also an annual workshop on Molecular Gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy is the scientific approach of nutrition from primarily the perspective of chemistry. The composition ( molecular structure), properties (mass, viscosity, etc) and transformations (chemical reactions, reactant products) o ...
.
Gallery
File:Church (9524863018).jpg, Erice Cathedral with its bell tower
File:Erice - interieur de la Chiesa Matrice.JPG, View inside the Cathedral
File:EriceDomRosette.jpg, Rose window of the Cathedral
File:Erice mura3.jpg, Cyclopean masonry
File:Erice-streets-bjs-3.jpg, Via San Carlo
File:San Giuliano church - Erice.jpg, St Julian's Church
File:Erice-Castle-bjs-1.jpg, Castle of Balio
File:Erice - Castello 03.JPG, The stronghold and Castle of Venere
File:Erice-Castle-bjs-2.jpg, Castle of Venere
File:Erice-views-bjs-1.jpg, View of monte Cofano
File:Erice-views-bjs-2.jpg, Trapani seen from the castle
File:Monte Cofano seen from Erice.jpg, Monte Cofano seen from an alley in Erice
References
External links
Panoramic view from Erice castle
Erice Photo Essay
{{Authority control
Elymians
Archaeological sites in Sicily
Phoenician colonies in Sicily