An ancient city to be discovered slowly, a bite from the baroque heart plan, around venules and Spanish courses tack from sumptuous palaces and churches of great beauty. A paradise of stone that is right there within walking distance from the sea, just around the corner. Trapani hidden by the curtain of the poor houses of sailors for centuries have its true soul, is a marvel marked by an endless stream of houses belonging to princes and barons, convents and churches boast of ecclesiastical orders here were powerful.
Corso V. Emanuele Trapani Via Garibaldi, the key feature of the old town, two streets with similar fates, but with different foundations: first, the Rua Grande, already drawn by the late James II of Aragon in 1300 and intended to buildings civil and religious power, the New rua, and seventeenth-century patrician houses of the nobles and dignitaries of the old Civitas. The way Torrearsa unites and merges the two arteries, combining into one story the two seas that face behind them. From here the scene is punctuated by baroque architectural changes that cut an escape of nineteenth-century houses that fall from the Mediterranean shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea, in a straight stone nervously interrupted by fanciful wrought-iron balconies. St. Augustine is the first spell, a clearing on which dominates the fifteenth century facade of the church, decorated with a canopy arched woven converging nell'Agnus Gods. Corso Vittorio Emanuele opens with the theatrical setting of the Senatorial Palace, built by Don James Cavaretta in the seventeenth century, the ancient seat of the Loggia dei Pisani. Columns, statues, niches, arches enliven the three tiers of the prospectus, all the way on raising the river of light coming from the sea. The church of the College and the attached convent grammar school hours are the main front of the Course. The Jesuits built their temple in the early seventeenth century, focusing on a baroque style that finds its best expression here. Capitals, gargoyles, cherubs, festoons and pilasters embroider front of the church.

The Cathedral, at the end of course, be seen glued to the wall. The prospectus Biagio John Friend in 1748 gives the whole machine stone porch with a refined elegance with three round arches, which opens up two towers and a dome surrounded by four domes. Any road that goes down to the port is ready to reveal more secrets, provided that you walk with your nose. The old prison of the seventeenth century, recently restored, with four magnificent telamons supporting the eardrum, the church still in Purgatory priest architect Giovanni Biagio Amico, with statues of the apostles who embroider the top edges. Inside are kept the twenty groups of Mysteries. A piece of Spain is the old hospital Locatelli Square, just steps from the sea, an imprint of seventeenth-century Baroque building set in a clearing stolen from other latitudes. It is back by Liberty, the street along the north wall.

I saw beautiful portals and fan, show the eagerness of the middle class of six hundred to adhere quickly to new trends in architecture, focusing prospectuses of the houses. How to Melilli Palace with sponge stone beads mounted on the frame as a tiara .. Suddenly he opened other scenes, which are tiny principalities, with the court's internal and external, outside the door, right on the street. Here Mokarta palace built by Don Martin Fardella favoring a classical approach with elements of baroque mannerist tradition. Portals are still dominated by the architecture of Garibaldi, the Rua Nuova. Fitted with teeth on the face of the Renaissance palace of the Barons of Scirinda Burgio, or anonymous fan in the eighteenth century buildings that are interspersed among the churches of S. Alberto Carminello, Santa Rita. Via Garibaldi leaving for one of its side you come first to San Nicolas where you can watch work in progress to restore the protobasilica eighteenth century, organ and artworks included.
Turn the case between the veins of this piece of Old Town, you find yourself admiring buildings of incredible beauty, overlooked by the tourist signs. As the fourteenth-century facade of the palace Burgio embroidered three lancet windows, a bay and unfortunately also by deep lesions. Ben has recovered but the end of Via Garibaldi with Palazzo Milo eighteenth century, with a precious carved wooden door frames and balconies of the Baroque (home of the Sovritnendenza BB.CC), and building bundles with a perfect harmony between portal shelf and tympanum. Farther along, building full of Morana (seat of the Presidency of the Province), recently restored with original frescoed halls and floors tiled (open to visitors). He turns the corner, now the sea is the only master of the scene. Among rocks, rocks, sand and beautiful sunsets. Released by the beauty of old stones.

Text of James Pilati - Photo Gallery Fabio Marino