Erice


Erice is a comune contiguous with the provincial capital Trapani, in western Sicily. Its historic core occupies the site of the ancient city of Eryx, one of the most significant archaeological and religious centres in pre-Roman western Sicily.
Located on the summit of Monte Erice, the city developed around a site that later became a prominent religious and military stronghold for the Carthaginians and Romans. It retains its medieval layout and architecture, with few modern interventions, and occupies a natural vantage point that historically offered strategic control over the Strait of Sicily and the western coastline.
Today Erice is a cultural and tourist centre, known for its historic monuments, festivals, and the international scientific conferences held at the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture. It is a member of I Borghi più belli d'Italia and has at times been mentioned in the local media as a potential candidate for UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
The municipality includes both the hilltop centre and a number of modern lower districts, some with beaches on the Tyrrhenian coast, as well as small agricultural frazioni on the surrounding foothills. Its economy combines heritage tourism with agriculture within the Erice DOC wine-producing region, alongside traditional olive and crop production.
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History

Antiquity

The earliest occupation of the hilltop is debated, but settlement likely began in the early first millennium BCE. Under the Elymians, who called the site Iruka, the community established fortifications and a sanctuary on the summit.
With the arrival of the Phoenicians in western Sicily during the early Iron Age and, later, Carthaginian control, the settlement developed within a circuit now known as the Elymian–Punic walls. Excavations distinguish an Elymian phase and a Punic rebuilding, including squared blocks bearing Punic mason’s marks; the oldest quarter of the city preserves a capillary network of narrow, irregular lanes often interpreted as part of a defensive, escape-oriented layout.
The Greeks and Romans called the settlement Eryx. Within the largely irregular historic street network, Via San Francesco is a notably straight alignment; Caracciolo has interpreted it as evidence of very ancient planning. Excavations and surveys document several ancient construction phases at the sanctuary on the summit.

Medieval period

The modern settlement of Erice began in the Norman period, when the summit was re-fortified as the Norman Castle of Venus. In the same centuries the kingdom’s ventures in Ifriqiya heightened the strategic weight of western Sicily’s heights and sea lanes, with Erice again serving as a defensive stronghold over the Strait of Sicily. During this period the town came to be known as Monte San Giuliano. In later medieval sources it appears as a royal demesne : in 1413 its universitas petitioned for the royal appointment of a captain and castellan, underscoring direct crown control rather than feudal lordship.
The 12th-century traveller Ibn Jubayr described abundant springs, cultivated fields, vineyards, and a fortress accessible by a bridge. Monte San Giuliano held an intermediate status in the territorial hierarchy, positioned between a civitas and a casale, and was classified as a terra.
The Norman fortress anchored the upper citadel, with the Balio Towers serving as its fortified gateway. A second hub formed around the Mother Church, and a third around the Palazzo Giuratorio, seat of the giurati. The town’s fabric coalesced around these three nodes, linked by the “Royal Road” and the “Great Road”. Wealthy families consolidated plots by combining neighbouring properties.
By the late 13th–14th centuries a parish network and several monastic houses reinforced this layout, further anchoring the three hubs.

Early modern and Bourbon period (16th–19th centuries)

From the 1500s Sicily formed part of Habsburg Spain via the Crown of Aragon, governed as a Spanish viceroyalty. In 1713 the island passed to the House of Savoy under the Treaty of Utrecht; in 1720 Victor Amadeus II exchanged Sicily for Sardinia, transferring Sicily to the Habsburg monarchy. In practice, society remained strongly aristocratic: feudal and ecclesiastical estates dominated landholding and local power well into the modern era, especially in Sicily, where large latifundia and church property were prominent.
Within this framework Erice prospered: its population rose from 7,657 in 1584 to about 12,000 by the late 1600s, and the town controlled much of the surrounding countryside. Many palaces and churches date to this period, and the patterned cobbled paving laid with small stones became a defining feature of the historic centre. To meet Spanish billeting obligations, townspeople funded the Spanish Quarter, a barracks begun on the town’s northern edge in the early 17th century and abandoned in 1632, after which troops were housed in the Castle of Venus.
In 1734 Charles of Bourbon conquered Naples and Sicily; Bourbon rule continued thereafter, and in December 1816 the two kingdoms were formally unified as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which lasted until 1860–61. Bourbon land policies redistributed parts of the demanio through emphyteusis—long leases that transferred cultivation rights while reserving ultimate ownership—encouraging new rural settlements such as Custonaci and San Vito Lo Capo. As administrative functions consolidated in Trapani, noble families and residents relocated, and the hilltop town became increasingly depopulated and economically peripheral.
In 1860, during the Sicilian phase of the Risorgimento, Erice supplied volunteers to Giuseppe Garibaldi’s campaign. Local patriot Giuseppe Coppola led the town’s volunteers—"875 men from Erice", as a civic plaque records—and fought at the Battle of Calatafimi before helping expel the Bourbon garrison from Trapani. Among the Ericine fallen was the physician Rocco La Russa Peraino, killed at the Ponte dell'Ammiraglio in Palermo on 27 May 1860; both men are commemorated by plaques in Erice. The suppression of monasteries by the Italian state after unification in the late 19th century further altered the town’s institutions and urban fabric.

Villeggiatura and salons (c. 1870–1930s)

From the late 19th century Erice entered a new phase of prosperity shaped by the culture of villeggiatura—the seasonal retreat of wealthy families to hill towns during the summer. The town’s altitude and cool breezes made it a favoured refuge from the heat of the lowlands, attracting not only residents of Trapani and Palermo but also expatriate Sicilian families from North Africa, including Tunis and Cairo.
Institutional life shifted at this time: civic functions moved from the medieval Balio Towers to the newly built Palazzo Municipale, and a piazza was created in front of it as the town’s modern civic centre. The Balio complex was reimagined as a public garden under the patronage of Count Agostino Sieri Pepoli, who leased the towers in the 1870s, laid out the landscaped Balio Gardens, and constructed the neo-Gothic Pepoli Turret as a retreat for study and cultural exchange. The turret became a venue for cultural gatherings, hosting writers, scholars, and musicians of the period.
By the early 20th century, civic cultural infrastructure expanded: the Cordici Museum was founded in 1876 and later housed in the upper floors of the town hall, in rooms that had formerly served as the municipal theatre, while the Vito Carvini Municipal Library was formed from suppressed convent collections after unification.
These decades also marked the beginnings of organised tourism, with the appearance of guesthouses and small hotels catering to seasonal visitors. The Grand Hotel Igea, opened in 1927–28, attracted figures from Sicilian aristocratic, cultural, business, and political circles, and for many years was a symbol of tourism in Erice. Though the tradition of villeggiatura declined in the 20th century with changing patterns of mobility and leisure, the architecture and public spaces of this period remain distinctive features of Erice.
In 1934 the town’s name was officially changed from Monte San Giuliano to Erice. During the Second World War, in 1943, a Luftwaffe operations post associated with Zerstörergeschwader 26 and Jagdgeschwader 27—units flying from nearby Trapani–Milo Airport—was positioned on the slopes of Monte Erice until Allied air raids forced its relocation. After the Allied landings in July 1943, elements of the 2nd Battalion, 505th Infantry Regiment advanced up Monte Erice; Italian forces occupying the ramparts surrendered after initial exchanges of fire. Erice ended the war largely unscathed, with its historic character intact.

Intellectualism (since 1962)

The post-war decades brought new accessibility: the Trapani-Erice Cable Car—first opened in 1956 and re-inaugurated on 8 July 2005—made the hilltop readily reachable for day-trippers and routine travel between the lower districts and the historic centre.
In 1962 the physicist Antonino Zichichi founded the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, establishing a year-round centre for international scientific schools and meetings. The Majorana Foundation has hosted residential schools and workshops that attracted scholars from around the world, including Nobel laureates such as Paul Dirac, Steven Weinberg, and Carlo Rubbia.
Courses have ranged across disciplines—from particle physics to ethics, microelectronics, and nutrition—and have produced declarations such as the Erice statement on the responsibilities of science.
The Foundation’s science-for-peace vocation has been acknowledged internationally; the Erice initiatives drew the attention of world leaders including Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pierre Trudeau, Olof Palme and Sandro Pertini.
The Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Ignazio e Vincenzo Florio opened Officucina teaching labs at Palazzo Sales in 2019 and expanded its learning spaces in 2024 under Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The Officucina are purpose-built culinary laboratories—professional teaching kitchens designed for food innovation projects and hands-on training.
In the 2020s the school expanded its facilities in the historic centre, opening boarding facilities in the former San Carlo monastery and the former Grand Hotel Igea. The school hosts public demonstrations and masterclasses led by visiting chefs and notable alumni. Guests have included American television chef Marc Murphy, Michelin-starred chef Giuseppe Costa of Il Bavaglino, and television chef Fabio Potenzano; the institute has also hosted an Erasmus+ bakery and chocolate masterclass with Belgian chefs Stijn Van Kerckhoven and Gilles Discart.

Religious significance

Pre-Christian origins

By the fifth century BCE, the indigenous Elymians living on the mountain had a sacred place on the summit. Later in the century, in 415 BCE, people from nearby Segesta led Athenian visitors up to see it and showed them silver bowls, ladles and incense burners as proof of wealth. Greek writers in the late fifth century BCE refer to it as “the temple of Aphrodite at Eryx”. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty. “Eryx” is the Greek name for the mountain.
Later Greek writers wove the summit site into their stories. Diodorus Siculus recounts a tale that the craftsman Daedalus built a wall on the crag by the temple and even fashioned a golden ram for the goddess at Mount Eryx. Strabo notes the temple’s wide renown and says that in earlier times many attendants had been dedicated there by people from Sicily and from abroad. Together these accounts show how famous the hilltop sanctuary was in Greek writing.

Roman veneration

In Roman usage the goddess was called Venus Erycina. A Roman coin from 57 BCE shows the sanctuary as a small temple with four front columns, set on a rocky summit within a walled precinct. Coin images are not architectural plans, but they suggest how Romans pictured the hilltop shrine.
Rome later founded two public temples in her honour—one on the Capitoline Hill and another outside the Porta Collina on the Quirinal. Both temples used the epithet "Erycina". The Sicilian sanctuary stayed important: in 25 CE the people of Segesta asked Emperor Tiberius to restore the old temple on the mountain, and he agreed.

Early Christianisation

From late antiquity onward the old sanctuary declined as the summit was reused. A small church dedicated to Santa Maria della Neve was probably built within the former sacred area during the time of the Norman castle ; its ruins are still visible inside the Castle of Venus.
From the 13th and 14th centuries, Erice saw new churches and monasteries founded with royal and baronial support. The town’s main church, the Chiesa Matrice, was built in 1314 under King Frederick III of Aragon, reportedly reusing material from the ancient temple of Venus Erycina. Baronial families backed new monasteries and churches. The Chiaramonte family are linked with the Santissimo Salvatore Benedictine house, set up in their former palace around 1290; the Ventimiglia family backed the Spirito Santo convent, authorised by a papal bull of Pope Urban V in the 1360s. The pope also issued an edict at Avignon in 1365 to found the nearby San Pietro church.
Erice is linked in Carmelite tradition with several figures. Blessed Luigi Rabatà is generally said to have been born at the site of the Church of Sant'Isidoro. Nineteenth-century local historians also report that the palace later adapted as the Spirito Santo convent was traditionally considered the birthplace of Saint Albert of Trapani. Modern Carmelite scholarship, however, generally places Albert’s birth in Trapani rather than Erice.
By the 1730s, Erice had at least thirty churches, along with six convents and three monasteries. Municipal “riveli” from 1836–1839 record 204 declarations; clergy were the largest single group among registrants—38 priests, 6 parish priests, 6 canons, an archpriest, a friar, a vicar, 3 clerics and 3 nuns—and many two-storey “solerate” houses are listed as residences with rooms that often included a small domestic chapel.

Modern devotion

Erice remains a religious destination. The Diocese of Trapani has renovated and reopened churches as part of the project Erice – la Montagna del Signore, which aims both to conserve and restore the town’s church heritage and to keep the churches open longer “for the faithful and for visitors”. The churches are presented together as a “museo diffuso” and are open to visits on a ticketed schedule.
Pilgrimage today often focuses on the Sant’Anna shrine on the lower slopes of the mountain. The footpath known as the Sentiero di Sant’Anna climbs from the valley cable car station up to the Santuario di Sant’Anna and on to Porta Trapani at the town gate; diocesan groups sometimes organise pilgrimages along these paths.
Near the summit, the woodland below the Castle of Venus is being restored and signed as part of the municipal Bosco Sacro project, reopening paths around the historic core; it is a municipal green belt rather than a distinct pilgrimage site.
Erice’s continuing religious prominence was underscored by a pastoral visit from Pope John Paul II during his Sicilian journey in May 1993, when he visited the town and met with the local community and participants at the Ettore Majorana Centre.
In the Balio Gardens, the “Venus and the Bee” fountain nods to the old cult in modern form. At the town's Cordici Museum, an immersive video installation titled Venere Ericina tells the story of the ancient Erice cult to a generative fertility divinity—identified by the Romans as Venus—dating back to the Elymian period and continued by later colonisers; the projections cover the room’s walls and floor.

Jewish community (medieval)

In the 1400s Erice had a substantial Jewish community that helped drive the town’s growth. There were artisans such as blacksmiths, cotton workers and leather tanners, along with doctors and goldsmiths; together their work made the community largely self-sufficient in everyday goods. The Jewish quarter lay mainly between the parish church of Sant’Antonio Abate and the Spanish Quarter, extending east toward the “Fontanella” and down to a long-vanished stretch of the old town wall.
In 1492, following the expulsion ordered by Ferdinand the Catholic, the quarter was largely abandoned and fell into ruin as families left or converted. The small church Madonna di [Custonaci, Erice|Madonna di Custonaci] was formerly a synagogue before its conversion to a chapel, a fact once attested by a plaque that has since been lost.

Geography

Setting and topography

Erice is located approximately 100 kilometres from the regional capital, Palermo. Its historic centre sits at an elevation of about 750 metres atop Monte Erice, while the wider comune extends to the coastline, encompassing a varied topography of mountainous, hilly, and coastal terrain.
In 2025, WWF Italy and the Italian Alpine Club proposed the creation of a national park—the Parco Nazionale delle Isole Egadi e del Litorale Trapanese—that would extend along the Trapani coastline to include the coastal strip of Erice.

Districts and urban structure

The comune comprises 12 officially recognised frazioni : Adragna, Baglio Rizzo, Ballata, Casa Santa, Crocefissello, Lenzi, Napola, Pizzolungo, Rigaletta, San Cusumano, Specchia, and Torretta. Historically, the municipal territory also included neighbouring towns such as Valderice and San Vito Lo Capo, but its present boundaries were finalised in 1955.
Until the mid-20th century, Erice’s territory was primarily rural, with an economy based on agriculture, grazing, and scattered farm settlements. From the 1950s onward, rapid and largely unregulated urban expansion reshaped the lower districts. Casa Santa emerged as the municipality’s administrative and commercial hub, while the historic centre transitioned into a centre for tourism.
Casa Santa contains the majority of the municipality’s population — with over 21,000 residents — and hosts most of Erice’s public infrastructure, including the main hospital, key sports facilities, the university campus, and the San Giuliano beachfront, with its beach clubs and associated hotels and tourist services. To the south-west, its built-up area is continuous with that of neighbouring Trapani, forming a single urban agglomeration across the municipal boundary.

Climate, land use and vegetation

Erice experiences a Mediterranean climate, with heat moderated by its elevation. Summers are warm and dry, while winters are cool and wetter. The hilltop location of Erice results in more frequent fog and lower average temperatures than the coastal areas, contributing to a microclimate distinct from nearby Trapani.
Much of the area around the historic centre is wooded with Mediterranean species such as Aleppo pine, holm oak, and cypress, interspersed with underbrush of myrtle, heather, and broom. Two particularly notable green spaces include the Sacro Bosco—a semi-natural sacred grove with mythological and monastic associations—and the Bosco dei Runzi, a forested area on the northeastern slope known for its biodiversity and shaded walking trails.

Economy and tourism

The economy of Erice is increasingly driven by tourism, supported by heritage investment and conference activity, alongside traditional agriculture centred on wine and olive production.

Tourism and hospitality

Tourism in Erice has grown significantly in recent years. A 2025 study by the Centro Studi Conflavoro projected a 25.7% increase in summer visitors compared with 2024, reflecting a wider resurgence of tourism in Italian hill towns and rural borghi. The study attributed Erice’s rising popularity to its elevated location, offering cooler summer temperatures, together with its medieval townscape, panoramic views, and appeal to visitors seeking authentic and climate-tempered destinations.
The town’s tourism offering is supported by strong transport connections and a diversified visitor landscape. Erice lies close to Trapani–Birgi Airport, the Port of Trapani and regional connections via Trapani railway station, while the Trapani–Erice Cable Car provides a direct connection between the coastal districts and the historic hilltop centre. In addition to heritage tourism, the town has a 1 km stretch of sandy beachfront along the Tyrrhenian coast and a surrounding countryside that forms part of the Erice DOC wine-producing region. Food and wine experiences, rural trails and walking routes across the Monte Erice area have contributed to the development of slower and experiential forms of tourism alongside traditional sightseeing.
Public and institutional investment in Erice has focused on conservation within the historic centre alongside the expansion of sports, leisure and beachfront facilities. Major projects have included the restoration of the Elymian-Punic Walls of Erice and the Balio Gardens, programmes for the conservation of religious buildings, and improved accessibility within the medieval townscape. In the lower districts, investment has supported the development of a cycling park, accessible beachfront infrastructure and new recreational facilities. These include the Giardino dello Sport, a 35,000 m² seafront sports complex featuring a multi-purpose indoor hall, outdoor courts and pitches for team and racket sports, fitness areas and full visitor amenities.
Erice also functions as a centre for conferences and specialist meetings, anchored by the facilities of the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture. The foundation operates multiple restored historic buildings across the town, including the Blackett Institute, which houses a large auditorium and lecture halls, alongside additional meeting spaces in former convents and palaces. Broader conferencing infrastructure includes venues such as the Palazzo Sales conference hall, which regularly hosts cultural heritage and environmental forums, and the historic Teatro Gebel Hamed, used for performances, lectures and large public events. Purpose-built demonstration kitchens support hospitality training in the historic centre and provide a venue for public cooking demonstrations.
Erice’s historic setting, panoramic views, and association with the ancient sanctuary dedicated to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, have contributed to the development of wedding tourism as part of the local economy. Civil ceremonies are conducted by the municipality at designated venues, including the Castle of Venus. The town is supported by a substantial hospitality sector, with hotels, guesthouses and other accommodation facilities recorded in regional tourism statistics, alongside restaurants and catering services serving both visitors and event-related tourism.

Agriculture and wine production

While tourism now represents a major economic sector, agriculture has historically played a central role in the economy of Erice and continues to shape the surrounding landscape. The Arab traveller and geographer Ibn Jubayr, writing in the late 12th century during the reign of William II of Sicily, noted the presence of vineyards and cultivated fields on the mountain slopes surrounding the fortified town then known as Monte San Giuliano. In the modern era, agricultural activity has become increasingly structured around quality production systems, particularly viticulture and olive growing, forming an important component of the rural economy of the comune.
Modern viticulture in the Erice area is regulated under the Erice DOC designation, established in 2004 as part of broader efforts to promote quality wine production in western Sicily. The Erice DOC forms part of the wider Val di Mazara wine region, a viticultural zone covering much of the island’s western half that includes several major appellations and has historically been associated with large-scale production, followed in recent decades by a transition toward higher-value, quality-focused winemaking. The Erice DOC permits the cultivation of both indigenous grape varieties, including Nero d’Avola and Grillo, and international varieties such as Syrah and Chardonnay, reflecting contemporary diversification within Sicilian viticulture.
Alongside viticulture, olive cultivation remains a widespread agricultural activity in the Erice area, particularly on the lower slopes and plains surrounding the historic town. Local producers primarily cultivate traditional Sicilian varieties such as Nocellara del Belice and Cerasuola, which are well adapted to the region’s dry summer climate and contribute to the production of high-quality extra virgin olive oil. Olive growing, together with smaller-scale cultivation of almonds, figs and cereals, continues to form an important component of the rural economy of the comune.
Since the late 20th century, agricultural enterprises in the Erice area have increasingly diversified their activities beyond primary production. In Sicily more broadly, agritourism and enotourism are recognised components of rural development policies that encourage farms to combine agricultural production with tourism services, including tastings, educational visits and accommodation. Academic research identifies diversification of Sicilian farms into tourism-related activities as a sustainable rural development pathway, particularly in western Sicily’s viticultural areas.

Public sector and services

Key public facilities that serve both Erice and Trapani are located in the lower district of Casa Santa. These include the Sant'Antonio Abate Hospital, the Stadio Polisportivo Provinciale, and the Polo Territoriale Universitario di Trapani, a satellite campus of the University of Palermo.

Landmarks

Key sites in Erice’s historic centre include:
  • Elymian-Punic Walls: Ancient fortifications that once protected Eryx. They are considered among the most significant surviving examples of early Mediterranean defensive architecture, incorporating Elymian, Punic, and medieval construction phases.
  • Castle of Venus: A Norman-era fortress built on the site of an ancient sanctuary dedicated to Venus Erycina, a Roman adaptation of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The area has been associated with religious activity since antiquity and features archaeological remains from Elymian, Roman, and medieval periods.
  • Chiesa Matrice: The main church of Erice built in the 14th century during the reign of King Frederick III. There are many other churches, monasteries, and oratories in the city, include the churches of San Giuliano and San Giovanni Battista.
  • Cordici Museum: A civic museum housed in a former Franciscan convent, founded in 1876 to conserve artworks and archaeological finds from suppressed religious institutions and local collections. Its holdings include Elymian and Roman artifacts, sacred art, ethnographic objects, and Garibaldian-era weapons.
  • Balio Towers: A group of medieval towers that served both defensive and administrative functions following the Norman conquest of southern Italy. They were the residence of the Bajulo, a royal official responsible for civil justice and taxation, and formed a gateway to the Castle of Venus.
  • Pepoli Turret: A neo-Gothic retreat built between 1872 and 1880 by Count Agostino Pepoli as a place for study and cultural gatherings. Situated on a rocky outcrop east of the Balio Gardens, it blends medieval, Moorish, and Liberty architectural elements. Restored in 2014, it now serves as a multimedia museum and the “Observatory of Peace and Lighthouse of the Mediterranean”.
  • Balio Gardens: Public gardens created in the 19th century by Count Agostino Pepoli on former grazing land adjacent to the Balio Towers. The gardens feature Mediterranean and exotic plantings, fountains, monuments, and viewpoints over Trapani and the surrounding coastline.
  • Eugene P. Wigner Institute: A historically significant former convent turned conference venue that also hosts art exhibitions and cloister performances.

Transport

Road and air connections

Erice is accessible by road from Trapani, connected via SP31 and SP3. The A29 motorway provides onward links to Palermo to the east.
Air travel is served by two nearby airports: Vincenzo Florio Airport, located about 29 km south of Erice, and Falcone–Borsellino Airport, approximately 90 km away. A new railway station at Trapani-Birgi Airport, part of a broader €13 billion in Sicilian rail infrastructure funded by Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan, will connect the airport to Trapani railway station and Palermo via the restored and electrified Palermo–Trapani line.

Cable car

The Trapani–Erice Cable Car is a regular service that connects the lower district of Casa Santa to the historic centre. While this has improved vertical mobility, broader accessibility challenges persist in Erice’s historic centre. Steep gradients, narrow streets, and uneven paving limit access for people with disabilities, and recent efforts—such as the limited introduction of electric vehicles—reflect the complex balance between conservation priorities and inclusive design.

Bus and ferry services

Bus transport between Erice and Trapani is fully integrated, with metropolitan routes providing continuous service across both municipalities. These services include connections to Trapani-Birgi Airport and Palermo.
The redevelopment of the cruise terminal and island ferry facilities at the Port of Trapani—closely linked to the tourism economy of Erice’s historic centre—improves access for passengers arriving via the Aegadian Islands and Mediterranean cruise routes.

Culture

From the 18th century onward, Erice has attracted artists, writers, and travellers, becoming a recurring subject in European art and travel literature. Today the town maintains a cultural life that combines historic religious traditions, festivals, gastronomy, and an active programme of artistic and musical events linked to its convent history and historic spaces.

Religious traditions

  • Misteri di Erice – Held annually on Good Friday, this solemn procession re-enacts the Passion of Christ through a series of sculptural tableaux known as the Misteri that are carried through the streets of Erice by members of local guilds in traditional costume. The procession begins at the Church of San Giuliano, where the groups of sculptures are displayed before the ritual begins.
  • Festa di Maria Santissima di Custonaci – Celebrated annually in late August, this festival honours Erice's patron saint, Maria Santissima di Custonaci. A highlight of the festivities is the "Consegna delle Chiavi d'Oro", during which the mayor symbolically entrusts the city's keys to the Madonna, followed by a procession through the historic centre involving local officials and representatives from neighbouring municipalities.
  • EricèNatale – During the winter holiday season, the town hosts a Christmas market, nativity displays, concerts, and lights the town with Christmas decorations and pine trees. This is followed at New Year with live performances in Piazza della Loggia and fireworks at midnight.

Festivals and cultural events

  • Ericestate – Erice’s official summer cultural programme, held annually between June and September. Organised by the Comune di Erice, it features a broad calendar of events including concerts, theatre performances, art exhibitions, children’s activities, and food-and-wine initiatives. Events are staged across various venues in both the historic centre and the modern districts, including the Teatro Gebel Hamed, with the aim of promoting cultural participation and supporting tourism in the region.
  • Festa FedEricina – A three-day medieval-themed festival held annually in September, dedicated to King Frederick III. Organised by the Gruppo Medievale MonteSanGiuliano – Erice with support from the Comune di Erice, it features historical parades, falconry displays, themed villages, and medieval banquets. The event attracts historical reenactment groups from across Sicily and abroad, and was first launched in 2015. The festival has been officially registered by the Central Institute for Intangible Heritage of the Italian Ministry of Culture as part of the national mapping of historical reenactments.

Gastronomy

Traditional foods of Erice reflect the town’s convent heritage and surrounding agricultural landscape, several of which are officially recognised as Prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali of Sicily. Local specialities include:
  • Pasta reale di Erice, an almond paste confection with convent origins.
  • Ericino, a firm, rind-covered cheese made from approximately 80% Valle del Belice sheep’s milk and 20% Cinisara cow’s milk.
  • Busiate, a spiral pasta from the province of Trapani, still produced in Erice by local artisan workshops.
  • Erice DOC wine, produced from vineyards on the slopes of Monte Erice that form part of the Val di Mazara wine region.
  • Mufuletta, a soft round semolina bun often scented with fennel seeds and eaten warm on 11 November ; local tradition links it to medieval soldiers and the first tasting of the new wine.
Erice retains a pastry tradition centred on the former San Carlo monastery; local patisseries continue the town’s almond-based recipes. Among its exponents is pastry chef Maria Grammatico, who learned in the monastery and offers short public pastry classes at her own Scuola di Arte Culinaria in the old town. The Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Ignazio e Vincenzo Florio, which has purpose-built culinary laboratories called Officucina at its campus in the historic centre, also hosts public demonstrations and masterclasses led by visiting chefs and notable alumni.
Borgo diVino in Tour stages an annual tasting weekend in the historic centre—typically in late August—featuring local and national wineries, street food, and live performances across venues such as Piazza della Loggia and Piazza San Giuliano.

Literature

Erice has featured in literary and historical writing since antiquity, when the ancient city of Eryx and its hilltop sanctuary were described by Greek and Roman authors. Later, the town attracted the attention of European travellers and authors of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Among them were Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who identified the ancient Mons Eryx with Monte San Giuliano in A Classical Tour through Italy and Sicily, George Dennis, who described the site and the Temple of Venus Erycina in A Handbook for Travellers in Sicily, and Henry Swinburne, who referred to the mountain as "Erix, or Monte S. Giuliano" in Travels in the Two Sicilies.
In 1897 the English novelist Samuel Butler argued in The Authoress of the Odyssey that the poem was written by a young Sicilian woman from Trapani and that several episodes reflect the landscape of western Sicily; he identified Mount Eryx and Trapani with key points in Odysseus’s journey. Erice commemorates Butler with a street, Via Samuel Butler.
Butler’s friend and literary executor Henry Festing Jones devoted four chapters of his travel book Diversions in Sicily to Mount Eryx and Erice, recording local customs, processions and the topography looking toward Trapani and the Egadi islands. Jones’s earlier Sicilian collection Castellinaria and Other Sicilian Diversions is dedicated to friends "di Monte Erice", reflecting the town’s role in the Anglo-Sicilian circle around Butler and Jones.
Jones’s account includes lively descriptions of Erice’s religious life. In his chapter on Monte San Giuliano, he describes the Festa di Maria Santissima di Custonaci procession of 25 August 1901:
"At 7.30 a brass band began to perambulate the town… at 8.30 the band entered the Matrice, and before Mass the sacred picture was unveiled."

Commemoration of Butler also extended to the surrounding area: Jones notes that, by 1908, a hotel in nearby Calatafimi bore the name "Albergo Samuel Butler" and that the town kept his memory in a street name.
In contemporary literary culture, the town is associated with the Premio Letterario Città di Erice, a literary prize that continues to promote writing and cultural engagement in the region, and hosts Bread Loaf in Sicily, the Sicilian edition of the long-running Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, an international literary workshop held annually in the town offering intensive courses, readings and lectures for writers.
Erice also honours the Italian writer Carlo Levi with Via Carlo Levi.

Film and television

Erice has served as a filming location or creative inspiration for several film and television productions:At War with Love, a World War II romantic comedy directed by Pif, was filmed on location in Erice.La baronessa di Carini, a television miniseries broadcast by RAI, included scenes filmed in Erice.Màkari, an Italian crime drama series, features Erice prominently in multiple episodes.
  • The town inspired sets in the 2018 superhero film Aquaman, starring Jason Momoa; although no scenes were filmed on location, its architecture was digitally recreated after local authorities denied filming permission.

Art

Erice has been a frequent subject for painters and printmakers from the 18th to the 20th century, and continues to feature in both historical and contemporary artistic contexts.
  • Louise-Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont, View of the Castello di San Giuliano, near Trapani, Sicily, National Gallery of Art, Washington—an early Romantic view of the castle and cliffs above Trapani. The work is in the NGA’s collection.
  • Jean-Claude Richard, abbé de Saint-Non, Voyage pittoresque ou Description des Royaumes de Naples et de Sicile includes engraved views of Sicilian sites; plates of Monte San Giuliano circulated widely in these volumes.
  • Francesco Lojacono, Monte San Giuliano, a landscape of present-day Erice attributed to Palermo’s Galleria d’Arte Moderna and reproduced on Google Arts & Culture.
  • Alberto Pisa, colour plates of Monte San Giuliano in the travel book Sicily, part of the publisher’s illustrated series. Specific images include “Monte San Giuliano” and related street scenes.
  • Michele Cortegiani, Le mura ciclopiche del Monte Erice, Palazzo dei Normanni, Palermo — a late-19th-century view of the ancient walls on Monte Erice; the canvas is recorded in the Royal Apartment’s Sala dei Paesaggi.
Erice preserves significant religious art within its historic convent complexes. The Casa Santa di San Francesco di Sales contains a complete eighteenth-century fresco cycle illustrating episodes from the writings of Saint Francis de Sales, attributed to the Trapani painter Domenico La Bruna and executed between 1760 and 1762 as a unified decorative scheme covering the walls and vaulted ceiling. The nearby Cordici Museum preserves further examples of local and regional art, including medieval sculpture and paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods connected with Erice’s churches and convents.
Erice has also hosted contemporary art through private collections and modern exhibitions in its historic spaces. The town is associated with the La Salerniana Collection, a modern and contemporary art collection established in Erice with a significant cross-section of Italian contemporary art including works by artists such as Carla Accardi, Pietro Consagra and Pino Pinelli alongside other figures reflecting post-war artistic developments. Erice has presented exhibitions featuring works by Andy Warhol and Mario Schifano in its historic venues, and site-wide installations such as Lobsteropolis in Erice by British artist Philip Colbert.

Performing arts

Erice supports a varied programme of live performing arts in historic venues across the town. The cloister of the Eugene P. Wigner Institute has hosted major musical events, including the first modern performance of Alessandro Scarlatti’s baroque opera Amor quando si fugge, allor si trova in 2025, conducted by Claudio Astronio in a production organised by the Mediterranean Music Association with choreography by Emiliano Pellisari and the No Gravity Dance Company. The same venue has also hosted exhibitions connected with operatic culture, including Puccini sui palcoscenici russi in August 2025, presenting rare archival materials tracing the performance history of operas by Giacomo Puccini on Russian stages.
Live music also plays an important role in the town’s cultural life. Erice is a regular venue for the International Festival of Ancient Music, which brings internationally recognised early-music ensembles and soloists to historic spaces including the Wigner Institute, the Cordici Museum and local churches, presenting repertoires ranging from medieval to baroque music. The town also features in regional jazz circuits, hosting concerts by touring ensembles in summer performance programmes.
The historic Teatro Gebel Hamed serves as Erice’s principal theatre and performance venue, staging theatre productions, concerts, dance performances and musical residencies throughout the year. Recent programming has included professional opera-theatre collaborations such as Winterreise – Viaggio d’Inverno, a staged interpretation of Franz Schubert’s song cycle presented by the Movin’Op company in collaboration with international cultural institutions.

Sport

ACES Europe in 2025 officially designated the municipality of Erice as a European City of Sport for 2027.
Erice manages or hosts a range of sporting facilities. The largest is the Stadio Polisportivo Provinciale in the Casa Santa district, a 10,000-seat ground that has served as the home stadium for Trapani Calcio. The town also includes the Giardino dello Sport, a 35,000 m² seafront sports park with multiple outdoor courts and pitches and a multi-purpose hall, the Porta Spada gymnasium, the municipal tennis and five-a-side football courts at Viale delle Pinete, and the historic Campo San Nicola football ground. The municipality in 2025 also approved plans for a new multipurpose sports complex in the frazione of Napola, including a rugby and football field, padel courts and other facilities.
The town is represented in national women’s volleyball by Pallavolo Erice, which has competed in Serie A2 and plays its home matches at the PalaShark arena in neighbouring Trapani. Football is played at amateur level on the municipal grounds, while local associations also field teams in tennis, basketball and athletics.
Erice also hosts recurring sporting events, including the Cronoscalata Monte Erice, an automobile hillclimb established in 1954 that is among the historic hillclimb races in Italian motorsport and forms part of the national championship calendar, as well as running competitions such as the Erice Trail, a springtime trail-running event held on the slopes of Monte Erice. Cycling events also make use of the coastal cycle path along San Giuliano beach.

People

This list includes people born in Erice and figures closely associated with the town’s institutions and heritage.
; Arts and letters
; Religion
  • Albert of Trapani, Carmelite saint. Generally held to have been born in Trapani; several Ericine historians record a local tradition that his family palace in Erice—later adapted as the Spirito Santo convent—was his birthplace.
  • Luigi Rabatà, Blessed Carmelite priest; beatified in 1841.
; History and civic life
; Science
; Sport