In the seventeenth century, with the Spanish domination in Sicily, there was the obligation of the so-called “cutlery” and that is the binding commitment for all the cities to offer free food and lodging to the soldiers of the garrison placed in defense of them.
Even Erice and its inhabitants had to submit to this obligation. To overcome this long-standing problem, the city’s jurors made a request to the Viceroy government, obtaining permission, to build a fort at their own expense, behind the church of S. Antonio, which would serve to house the military.
The Ericini people taxed themselves, pouring an extraction gabelle of two tarì per year per body, for six consecutive years and finally the construction of the “Spanish Quarter” began. The works were entrusted in 1627 to the American Marco Antonio Vultaggio who won the contract and accepted the constraints of the legendary specifications. In 1632, the work for the construction was abruptly interrupted and never resumed, because in the meantime our contractor had ended up in the galleys for having defrauded the University of Erice. The neighborhood, from that moment was completely abandoned to its fate and the Spanish soldiers welcomed in the Norman Castle.
Around 2005 the Fortress was the subject of a significant restoration.
Today it houses the ethno-anthropological section of the “A. Cordici “.