Castello di Venere - Erice

The Norman castle in Erice, Castello di Venere , has its origins in the goddess of fertility Venus.

Where the fortress is built, there used to be a temple dedicated to Potnia, the goddess of fertility, worshiped by the Elymians, an ancient pre-Roman people who lived in this part of Sicily. Potnia was referred to by the Phoenicians-Carthaginians as Astarte, by the Greeks as Aphrodite and by the Romans as Venus (hence the name Castello di Venere, “Castle of Venus”).

According to legend , this was also the place where Erix was buried after he died during a boxing match against Hercules . Erix was the son of an Argonaut and Aphrodite and Erice was named after him.

In the 12th century, the Normans used the stones of the temple to build the castle, the focal point of a defensive system that also included the Balio towers ("Bajulo" is the name of the magistrate who represented the king and with his court in the castle lived). The fortress was the "royal square" for the Aragonese viceroys and the Spanish Habsburgs until the 16th century. With the Bourbons it became a prison. In the first decades of the 19th century it passed to the municipality, which at the end of the century donated it as a concession to Count Agostino Pepoli in exchange for a restoration of the Balio Towers.

The western facade of the castle is topped by Ghibelline battlements and the wall of the complex follows the contours of the cliff with recesses and protrusions. It is possible to see the entrance to a secret tunnel , which was located under the disappeared buildings and led out of the castle.

Willem Vandenameele