Madonna di Custonaci
Ancient spring and chapel on Erice's eastern slope.
Madonna di Custonaci is an 18th-century chapel in Erice, standing beside the historic Fontanella spring in an area associated with the town's medieval Jewish community.
Key facts
Site type:
Comune:
Chapel
Erice
District:
Historic centre
The small Chapel of the Madonna di Custonaci stands beside the Fontanella, a natural spring and pool on the northeastern slope of Mount Erice. The surrounding area preserves the historical name Piscina di Apollo and has associations extending from antiquity through Erice's medieval Jewish history to later Christian devotion.
The present chapel was built around 1742 at the expense of the master craftsman Paolo Floreno, possibly one of the leather workers who operated near the Fontanella. Baron Melchiorre Curatolo later restored the building, provided it with furnishings and an annuity, and acquired rights of patronage over it. By the second half of the 19th century, however, the chapel had fallen into ruin.
The building was restored again in 2020. At its reopening, a ceramic image of the Madonna by Piero Amico was installed in the niche above the altar.
The chapel's setting is central to its historical interest. The Fontanella lay close to Erice's medieval Jewish quarter and cemetery, while historical tradition also associates the spring with Jewish ritual purification. Earlier traditions connected the same area with Apollo, whose name survives in the Piscina di Apollo.
Photo: Elymian Atlas
Explore further
The Fontanella brings together several distinct periods in the history of Erice. Surviving place names, historical accounts and physical evidence reveal a landscape associated with the ancient world, the town's medieval Jewish community and the later devotion to the Madonna di Custonaci.
The Fontanella and medieval Jewish Erice
Erice once supported a substantial Jewish community, with its principal neighbourhood extending between Sant'Antonio Abate and the northern side of the town towards the Fontanella. Historical accounts associate a synagogue with the area around the Piscina di Apollo, while local tradition holds that the spring or pool was used for Jewish ritual purification, possibly as a mikveh. The precise form and location of such an installation have not been securely established.
More tangible evidence comes from the Jewish cemetery associated with the Fontanella. Among the surviving objects from it is a Hebrew funerary stone dated 1359, commemorating Judah (Yehudah), son of Nathan.
Its inscription can cautiously be rendered:
Judah, son of Nathan; may his rest be in Eden.
The stone provides a rare personal connection with Erice's medieval Jewish population, more than a century before the expulsion of the Jews from Sicily in 1492.
The Madonna at the Fontana di Apollo
The Fontanella also became associated with the devotion to the Madonna di Custonaci. Accounts of the historic Trasporti, when the revered image was carried from Custonaci to Erice, connect the procession with the area around the Fontana di Apollo before it continued into the town.
The devotion remains part of a wider Marian tradition across the former territory of Monte San Giuliano. In August 2026, Pietro Maria Fragnelli, Bishop of Trapani, formally granted Erice the title Civitas Mariae, together with Trapani, Alcamo, Calatafimi Segesta and Castellammare del Golfo. Custonaci had previously received the title. The recognition is associated with the presence in these towns of images of the Madonna crowned by the Vatican Chapter and with the wider history of Marian devotion within the Diocese of Trapani.
Legends & mythology
Apollo and the sacred spring
Local tradition associates the Fontanella with Apollo and holds that a small sanctuary dedicated to the god once stood beside the spring. Its waters were also traditionally believed to possess healing properties. Apollo's connections with healing and purification give the story an appropriate setting, although the existence of a sanctuary at this precise location has not been archaeologically established.
The association survives most clearly in the historical place name Piscina di Apollo — the Pool of Apollo — still reflected in Via Piscina Apollinis beside the chapel.
The Madonna di Custonaci has a separate legendary tradition. According to the story, her sacred image arrived on the coast near Monte Cofano aboard a ship caught in a violent storm. After the sailors appealed to the Virgin and reached safety, the image was brought ashore and eventually became the focus of the devotion centred on Custonaci.
The later Trasporti brought the Madonna to the Fontana di Apollo on the journey to Erice, placing these very different religious traditions within the same landscape.
Sources & further reading
These sources document the chapel, the Fontanella and Piscina di Apollo, Erice's medieval Jewish community and the religious traditions associated with the site.