Sicily

We will take abaut…

The Ligny Tower.

Castle of the dovecote.

and..

Erice.

Ligny Tower

Ligny Tower is a coastal watchtower in Trapani, Sicily. It was built between 1671 and 1672 at a strategic position on the city’s western coast. Today, the tower is in good condition, and it is open to the public as an archaeological museum.

History

Ligny Tower was built on a narrow strip of land on Trapani’s western coast, to defend the city from attacks by the Barbary corsairs. It was named after the Viceroy of Sicily, Claude Lamoral, 3rd Prince of Ligne, who had ordered its construction. The tower was designed by the Flemish architect Carlos de Grunenbergh. It has a square base with scarped walls, with four corner turrets which originally contained lanterns.

The tower was proposed in a meeting held at Palermo on 11 January 1670. Construction began in 1671, and it was inaugurated in October 1672.

A passage connecting the tower with the mainland was built in 1806, and guns were installed on the tower’s roof until 1862. It was subsequently used as a semaphore station, but it was eventually abandoned.

In World War II, the tower was used by the Regia Marina and was armed with anti-aircraft guns.

The tower was restored in 1979 by the architect Francesco Terranova. Since 1983, the tower has been an archaeological museum, known as Museo civico Torre di Ligny.

Castle of the dovecote

He Dovecote, also known as Torre Peliade or Sea Castle, is a former medieval fortress from Trapani, located on a small island at the eastern end of the port of Trapani. It is 32 meters high, consists of four levels, with the first used as a cistern, while the original entrance was located on the second floor. It is one of the best examples of military architecture in Sicily.

History

Some legends link the Dovecote with Trojan exiles landed in Trapani after the fall of their city in the thirteenth

century BC, but there is no evidence of this fact. The first historical documents are instead climb the fort during the First Punic War by the Carthaginian Hamilcar Barca. The current name is the language Dovecote cast of islet name in greek, Peliades, Πελειάδες (from πέλεια, dove, specifically Columba livia), from which comes also the alternative name of Peliade tower. In 249 BC He was held in Trapani important naval battle that saw the Romans heavily defeated by the Carthaginians. Two years later, the Roman consul Numerio Fabio Buteone attacked and conquered in one night the islet of Dovecote, killing all its occupants. After the Roman conquest of the tower was abandoned and was reduced to a nest of doves, which had been used as communication. During that time it was probably the seat of the pagan worship of the goddess Venus Erice, which doves were sacred animal. The Arabs in restaurarne use as a lighthouse. It was during the Middle Ages that was rebuilt by the Aragonese in the current octagonal shape. It was enlarged in 1400, and became a fortress during the reign of Charles V, to defend the city from barbarian attacks. The latest transformations suffered the nell’XVII century on the orders of the viceroy Don Claudio Lamoraldo, Prince of Ligny. On the outside wall of the tower you can still read the plaque that was put up in 1671 by the Prince. Disused military target, was turned into a prison by the Bourbons, after the riots of 1821 and until 1860 housed the Sicilian patriots of the Risorgimento, including Michele Fardella, the Mokarta Baron, who was mayor of Trapani in 1861. Was used as a prison until 1965, when it opened the new prison in Trapani, then fallen into a state of neglect. In the nineties it was restored the crumbling tower, while the rest of the castle Regional Superintendence of Cultural Heritage could not intervene because it belongs to the state land. In 2009 it was identified by the Italian Environment Fund as the heart of the Italian place, because the monument in a state of disrepair and neglect, was devoid of restoration. Only 3 December 2010 the decree of the ‘Dovecote’ was signed by the President of the Republic, thus transferring the good by the State to the Region of Sicily, which announced the restoration

Erice

Mount Erice is a mountain of Sicily, in the province of Trapani.

Territory

It is located east of Trapani, and covers a 18.3 square kilometers. From the mountain comes down the river Lenzi. In the top of which stands the town of Erice, while the foot is the Holy House of the municipality of Erice and the outskirts of the city of Trapani, while the eastern side of the municipality of Valderice.

Geographers aspects

It is covered by a forest of Aleppo pines (the Martogna area), thermophilic oak (the state-owned forest of Saint Anne) and holm oak and oak (district Sword Coast). There are numerous hiking trails. The Forestry Department of the Sicilian Region will set up an agro-forestry museum in the place S. Matteo, 4 kilometers from Erice.

History

Formerly inhabited by the Elimi of Trojan origin people. It was later occupied by the Carthaginians and Romans, who worshiped Venus Erycina, eell’antico temple. It was renamed in 1167 by the Normans Monte San Giuliano. In 1934 he returned to the original name. Until the ’50s the town of Monte San Giuliano included the territories of the common current of Erice (Trapani with the hamlet of Santa Casa), Valderice, Custonaci, San Vito Lo Capo and Buseto Palizzolo. On its hairpin bends takes place from 1954 Cronoscalata Monte Erice.