Colombaia Castle in front of the port of Trapani

Colombaia Castle at the port of Trapani.

A very fascinating place, the Colombaia Castle.

Was Colombaia Castle a fortress, or maybe a lighthouse or maybe a castle? Or maybe a prison?….It was all of them.
Colombaia Castle Trapani

Colombaia Castle

We are walking along Viale Regina Elena, commonly called Marina, beside the sea. From here everyone can see a kind of castle in the sea, opposite the port. Colombaia Castle is one of the symbols of Trapani and it is very loved by people.
Looking closely, one can see the Colombaia Castle is located on an island.
The castle offers its smaller side to those watching from the port. From here it looks like a small fortress. As you get closer to it, you realize it is massive. It is possible to get the fortress only by boat. At east it ends with a strip of land while the Mediterranean sea borders the left part.

Colombaia castle little islandOrigins of Colombaia

The origins of the Colombaia are ancient, as expressed by the popular saying “..[he/she/it is]… older than the Colombaia, as the historian Francesco Pugnatore reported. Old people from Trapani still use to indicate like this something that has always existed.

According to the historian Diodorus Siculus, the first building on the small island dates back to the Carthaginian Hamilcar Barca (from the Phoenician baraq, meaning lightning), father of Hannibal. Around 260 B.C. he built the tower called Peliade in the same place of a rudimentary lighthouse. The name derived from the spontaneous herbaceous vegetation which surrounded the tower. In fact seen from afar, it looked like a carpet of hair.

First Punic War

In 249 B.C. the first Punic War took place near the Egadi; it saw the Carthaginians defeated by the Romans. Two years later, the Roman consul Numerius Fabio Buteone attacked and conquered the small island of the Colombaia, killing all its inhabitans in only one night. Consequently the tower was abandoned and reduced to a nest of doves (hence his name), which used it as a starting point for their migration to Africa.

Pagan rites of Anagogie and Catagogie

Probably Colombaia was one of the sites for the pagan rites of Anagogie and Catagogie, linked to worship of goddess Venus in Erice. Doves were animals sacred to her. In the shrine of Venus Erycina, during the month of August, they celebrated the feasts of the departure of doves sacred to Aphrodite (Anagogie) and those of their return (Catagogie). During their return the red dove, the incarnation of the Goddess, would return to the shrine ahead of the others.
Some historians attribute to the Arabs the conversion of the original tower into a lighthouse, putting a fire on its top. During Crusades (1096-1274) and Swabian-Angevin period, the tower played a role in defence and sighting.

First Restoration of Colombaia

In 1320, during the reign of Frederick III of Sicily, the architet Sergio Riccioli restored the Colombaia. So it became a castle used to host the nobles. Perhaps he also built the octagonal shaped tower as it is at the present day. The tower is the greatest architectural value of the entire structure.
Colombaia Castle towerArt historian Vincenzo Scuderi in his book “Medieval Art in Trapani” attributed it to the first period of Aragonese domination, because it was similar to earlier Swabian military architecture as the Castle of Frederick at Enna and Castle of the Mount in Apulia.

The Castle under Spanish rule

During the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries the Spanish rulers ordered the reinforcement of the coastal defences. In that occasion they enlarged and strengthened the castle-fortress of Colombaia.
In 1550, the Viceroy Giovanni De Vega ordered to put artillery in the small island and the construction of a ditch dug between the small island and the city walls.  Three years earlier the fort had received a fixed garrison.
In 1586, under the reign of Philip II of Spain , the florentine architect Camillo Camilliani expanded the fortTogether with architect Spannocchi they designed a defence system consisting of thirty massive towers all over the coast of the province of Trapani, in order to prevent the frequent raids from Saracen pirates.
Later Philip III of Spain provided the castle with a bridge, in 1607.

In the late seventeenth century Spanish again expanded and remodelled the Colombaia. A marble plaque affixed to the walls of the eastern rampart is a proof of the work. This is similar to the plaque in Ligny Tower, which was built in 1670 by the Viceroy Don Claudio La Moraldo, Prince of Ligny. He had got the task to fortify Trapani to protect it from invasions by the Turks.

Spanish arms Colombaia Castle Trapani

The Colombaia as prison in the 18th century

During the eighteenth century the fortress ceased to have a military function. In 1821 it started to accommodate prisoners including some of the Risorgimento patriots such as Michele Fardella of Mokarta.  Together with Garibaldi he fought in the important battle of Calatafimi.

Colombaia as Place most loved by Italians

The Colombaia Castle was a prison until 1965, after which it was completely abandoned. In 1993 Regional Office of Cultural Heritage restored the tower again while it was not able to restore the rest of the Colombaia castle, because it belonged to the Italian government.
Almost 15 years later the Italian Environment Fund identified Colombaia Castle as a “special place in the heart of Italians, a monument in a state of decay and neglect, with no restoration.”

Colombaia Castle Trapani view view from top Colombaia Castle tower
In 2010 the property of Colombaia was transferred from the State to Region of Sicily and later it was transferred to the Cultural Heritage Office of Trapani. This was the first necessary step to implement the restoration project. In early 2012, the Region allocated six hundred thousands euros budget that has been used for the first work of consolidation. Almost six million euros are still needed to complete restoration.

Colombaia Castle inside restored Colombaia Castle Trapani beautiful sea

Colombaia Castle Tower Colombaia Castle view from tower's window

source:

http://trapaniedintorni.altervista.org

Foto: Maria Virzì