Erice (; scn, Èrici) is a historic

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

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 also ...

'' in the

province of Trapani Trapani ( it, Provincia di Trapani, scn, Pruvincia di Tràpani; officially ''Libero consorzio comunale di Trapani'') is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily, southern Italy. Following the suppression of the Sicilian provinces, it ...

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 Monte Erice, or ancient Greek Mount Eryx, is a mountain of Sicily, in the province of Trapani. Location The mountain is to the east of Trapani and encompasses an area of 18.3 km2. The Lenzi River has its source on the mountain. The city ...

, at around above sea level, overlooking the city of

Trapani Trapani ( , ; scn, Tràpani ; lat, Drepanum; grc, Δρέπανον) is a city and municipality (''comune'') on the west coast of Sicily, in Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Trapani. Founded by Elymians, the city is still an imp ...

, the low western coast towards Marsala, the dramatic Punta del Saraceno and Capo San Vito to the north-east, and the Aegadian Islands 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 Buseto Palizzolo ( Sicilian: ''Palazzolu'') is a town and ''comune'' in North-Western Sicily, Italy, administratively part of the province of Trapani. Geography Buseto Palizzolo is located in the hills east of Trapani, the highest of which is w ...

, Paceco,

, Valderice and Custonaci. The hamlets (''

frazioni A ''frazione'' (plural: ) is a type of subdivision of a ''comune'' (municipality) in Italy, often a small village or hamlet outside the main town. Most ''frazioni'' were created during the Fascist era (1922–1943) as a way to consolidate territ ...

'') are Ballata, Casa Santa, Crocefissello, Napola, 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 histor ...

ns founded it, but was largely

Hellenized Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in th ...

. It was destroyed in the First Punic War 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 a c ...

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 Con ...

. 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 ''Zerstörergeschwader'' 26 (ZG 26) "Horst Wessel" was a Luftwaffe heavy fighter wing of World War II. Formed on 1 May 1939, ZG 26 was initially armed with the Messerschmitt Bf 109 single-engine interceptor due to production shortfalls with t ...

'' and ''

Jagdgeschwader 27 ''Jagdgeschwader'' 27 (JG 27) "''Afrika''" was a fighter wing of the Luftwaffe during World War II. The wing was given the name "Africa" for serving in the North African Campaign predominantly alone in the period from April 1941 to Septemb ...

'' 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 Elymians ...

and

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 upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Pe ...

times, and the Castello di Venere ("Venus Castle"), dating from the

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

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). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

. 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 Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

area in the ancient age, and an important cult 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 for ...

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 Antonino may refer to: * Antonino (name), a given name and a surname (including a list of people with the name) * Antonino, Kansas, an unincorporated community in Ellis County, Kansas, United States See also * Antoniano (disambiguation) * Antoñ ...

. 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