Antonio Cordici

Antonio Cordici (1586–1666) was a historian and antiquarian whose collecting and historical writings are considered foundational for the study of Erice, Sicily. He is the namesake of the Cordici Museum, dedicated to him in recognition of his role as the town’s first collector.^[1][2]

Cordici lived and worked in Erice in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, assembling one of the earliest private collections of antiquities and historical materials in the town.^[2] His reputation rests above all on a local history he composed in the seventeenth century, preserved in manuscript and later published in a modern critical edition.^[3]

• La istoria della città del Monte Erice oggi detta Monte di San Giuliano, antichissima città nel Regno di Sicilia (17th-century manuscript; modern ed. Erice, 2009, ed. Salvatore Denaro; introd. Salvatore Fodale).^[4] The Erice museum literature notes multiple Cordici manuscripts held locally (e.g., items catalogued as Ms. 3 and Ms. 8).^[3]

The civic museum established in Erice on 2 January 1876 drew on private collections (including coins from the Cordici collection), as well as objects transferred from suppressed religious houses; it was dedicated to Cordici "as full recognition" of his pioneering role as the town’s first collector.^[1]

A commemorative bust of Cordici stands in the Balio Gardens alongside other figures linked to Erice’s civic history.^[5] A street in the historic centre of Erice bears his name: Via Antonio Cordici (from Piazza della Loggia to Via Gian Filippo Guarnotti).^[6]

• Cordici Museum
• Via Antonio Cordici