Trapani

The history of of Trapani’s coral manufacture has remote origins and already in the 12th century the Arab traveller Idrisi noted its fine quality. In the 14th century, the discovery of a coral “mine” in the sea of Trapani (1416-1418) and one near San Vito Lo Capo (1439) attracted some Jewish families from the Maghreb […]

The Misteri (Mysteries), ie groups of statues depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ, appeared in Trapani in the late 16th-early 17th centuries by means of the Company of the Blood of Christ, which later merged with the Brotherhood of St. Michael (1646).  The strict guidelines issued by the Council of Trent and the arrival in Trapani of the […]

Located at the spot where via Torrearsa  (formerly ‘via degli Scultori’ ie Sculptors’ street) intersects with  Corso Vittorio Emanuele (former ‘Rua Grande’), the Senate Palace was built on the site of the ancient ‘Loggia dei Pisani’, which is why, even today , the space in front is called the Loggia. Its origins date back to the 15th […]

The ‘Agostino Pepoli’ Regional Museum is one the city’s most prestigious institution and is located in the former convent of the Carmelite Fathers (dating back to the 14th century) rising next to the Madonna di Trapani Sanctuary.  It is one of the most emblematic museums of applied arts, characterized by its collection of Trapani coral works […]

The Giudecca, so-called because of its location in the ancient Jewish quarter of the city, was built in the early 16th century by the Ciambra family, whose coat of arms depicting a deer at the foot of a tree is inserted into the arched portal. It is a building on two floors, with lateral towers  fully covered […]

The Franciscan church is one of the most significant in the old town for its attractive late-Gothic form. It was built in the 16th century, at the expense of the Treasury of the Observant Friars who had been deprived of their original church of Santa Maria dei Greci in 1535 (it was demolished to allow […]

In the 17th century Trapani maintained its loyalty to the kingdom of Spain. While in Rome the formal solutions of great Baroque art were being defined, our town, after lingering in the tardy forms of 16th-century classicism or mannerism, (as in the Jesuit church and its College),  moved towards a chromatic-Spanish interpretation of the Baroque […]

The Dominicans arrived in Trapani in the early 13th century (circa1221-1229) and initially settled in the Jewish quarter, in the ‘Chiesa del Gesù’ (near the tombstone of the 40 hours). In 1289 King James of Aragon granted them the highest hill of the city where there was the chapel of St Mary the Virgin, which […]

Built in 1101 as a chapel of the Knights Templar and dedicated to St. John the Baptist, in 1314 it was granted by Frederick III of Aragon to the Augustinian fathers. They enlarged it by adapting it to the Gothic style and built an adjoining convent. Still remaining of the original structure are its gabled […]

It was built in the early 17th century by Trapani’s coral hunters, in thanksgiving for the find of a huge amount of coral due to the intercession of St. Liberale (or Liberante). It is said that a Corallaro (coral hunter) from Trapani, having been swept onto the Tunisian coast, was then captured and killed in the vicinity of the place […]