TRAPANI - Sicily

Trapani is situated in the west of Sicily, on a strip of land that extends towards the sea. From here, on the extreme western offshoot is the Torre di Ligny, built in 1671 as part of the coastal watch and defence system; today it houses the Prehistory Museum. Not far away are the fishing port, Villino Nasi and the former Lazaretto, near which is one of the symbols of the city, the Colombaia islands. Venture into the old city centre where many of the most important buildings line Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Via Torrearsa and Via Garibaldi. These include the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, which conserves a Crucifix attributed to Van Dyck, the baroque Palazzo Cavarretta, the church of Sant'Agostino and that of Santa Maria del Gesu. Also in the vicinity is the church of the Purgatorio, erected in 1683.

Corso Italia leads into the old ghetto, inhabited by the Jewish community until the 15th century, where the main building is the 16th-century Palazzo della Giudecca. Slightly north of here is the church of San Domenico with the annexed cloister of the Dominicans.

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele marks the boundary between the old centre and the new city and contains a statue of Vittorio Emanuele II, the work of Giovanni Dupre (1882), and the fountain of Tritone (11200). To see Trapani's greatest attraction, you must move away from the old centre along Via Fardella to the east part of the city; this is the Sanctuary of the Annunziata, built between 1315 and 1332 but extensively restructured inside in 1760. Particularly worthy of attention is the chapel of the Madonna, which contains a Madonna and Child known as the Madonna of Trapani, by Nino Pisano. Adjacent to the sanctuary is the former convent of the Carmelite Fathers, where the Pepoli Regional Museum has been arranged. Along with the sculptures and painted works, the collections illustrate the development of the figurative arts in this area from antiquity almost to the present day. Trapani is also the city of salt-works, some of the most important on the island; to the south, the old plants mark the entire coast as far as Marsala.