Torre di Ligny
Seventeenth-century coastal fortress overlooking the western tip of Trapani
The Torre di Ligny is a seventeenth-century coastal fortress standing on the rocky headland of Pietra Palazzo at the western tip of Trapani. Built during the Spanish administration of Sicily, it formed part of the city's coastal defences and remains one of its best-known landmarks.
Key facts
Site type:
Comune:
Fortifications
Trapani
District:
Historic centre
The tower was commissioned by Don Claudio Lamoraldo, Prince de Ligné, Viceroy of Sicily. An 1896 study published in the Archivio Storico Siciliano, based on the tower's Latin inscription and seventeenth-century archival records, concluded that construction was already under way in 1671 as part of a wider programme to strengthen Sicily's coastal fortifications.
Occupying a strategic position overlooking the approaches to Trapani's harbour, the tower formed part of the city's wider defensive system alongside the Colombaia fortress and the bastioned walls. Contemporary records show that by 1672 it had been equipped with artillery, a permanent garrison and signalling equipment. Its Latin inscription describes it as a fortress built "for the security of the Kingdom", reflecting its defensive purpose.
Earlier accounts, including those of the nineteenth-century historian Giuseppe Polizzi, associated the tower's construction with the popular disturbances of 1673. The later archival study concluded instead that work had already begun before these events.
Since 1983, the tower has housed the Museo Civico di Preistoria, established by the Soprintendenza to promote knowledge of the prehistory of the Trapani area and to provide a permanent home for archaeological finds from the region.
Photo: Robert Garrigus, Alamy