La Colombaia

The sea castle, commonly called La Colombaia, according to tradition was built by Hamilcar Barca, on a small island at the eastern end of the port, at the time of the First Punic War.

Also called the Peliade Tower, the name Colombaia is said to derive from the islet Peliàdes (in Greek peleia, dove, specifically Columba livia). After the Roman conquest the tower was abandoned and became a nesting place for doves. Rebuilt in the Aragonese period it took its present octagonal form with a ribbed umbrella vault: reworked and renewed in the following centuries, after the uprisings of 1821 it was turned into a prison by the Bourbons and until 1860 housed the Sicilian patriots of the Risorgimento.

Unused since 1965, the year the new prison opened, in 2009 it became part of the Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano (FAI) as a “Place of the Heart” of the Italians, and in 2010 it passed from State property to property of the Sicilian Region, which has announced its restoration.