Urbino

Urbino

Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482. The town, nestled on a high sloping hillside, retains much of its picturesque medieval aspect. 

The modest Roman town of Urvinum Mataurense ("the little city on the river Mataurus") became an important strategic stronghold in the Gothic Wars of the 6th century, captured in 538 from the Ostrogoths by the Byzantine general Belisarius, and frequently mentioned by the historian Procopius.

Though Pippin presented Urbino to the Papacy, independent traditions were expressed in its commune, until, around 1200, it came into the possession of the House of Montefeltro. Although these noblemen had no direct authority over the commune, they could pressure it to elect them to the position of podestà, a title that Bonconte di Montefeltro managed to obtain in 1213, with the result that Urbino's population rebelled and formed an alliance with the independent commune of Rimini (1228), finally regaining control of the town in 1234. Eventually, though, the Montefeltro noblemen took control once more, and held it until 1508. In the struggles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines where factions supported either the Papacy or the Holy Roman Empire, the 13th and 14th century Montefeltro lords of Urbino were leaders of the Ghibellines of the Marche and in the Romagna region.

The most famous member of the Montefeltro was Federico III (or II), Duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482, a very successful condottiere, a skillful diplomat and an enthusiastic patron of art and literature. At his court, Piero della Francesca wrote on the science of perspective, Francesco di Giorgio Martini wrote his Trattato di architettura ("Treatise on Architecture") and Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, wrote his poetical account of the chief artists of his time. Federico's brilliant court, according to the descriptions in Baldassare Castiglione's Il Cortegiano ("The Book of the Courtier"), set standards of what was to characterize a modern European "gentleman" for centuries to come.

In 1502, Cesare Borgia, with the connivance of his Papal father, Alexander VI, dispossessed Duke Guidobaldo and Elisabetta Gonzaga. They returned in 1503, after Alexander had died. After the Medici pope Leo X's brief attempt to establish a young Medici as duke, thwarted by the early death of Lorenzo II de' Medici in 1519, Urbino was ruled by the dynasty of Della Rovere dukes. 

The War of Urbino (1517) was a secondary episode of the Italian Wars.

The conflict ensued after the end of the War of the League of Cambrai (1508–16), when Francesco Maria I della Rovere decided to take advantage of the situation to recover the Duchy of Urbino, from which he had been ousted in the previous year.

In the early 1517 he presented himself under the walls of Verona to hire the troops which had besieged the city, now to be returned to the Republic of Venice. Della Rovere set off with an army of some 5,000 infantry and 1,000 horses which he entrusted to Federico Gonzaga, lord of Bozzolo, reaching the walls of Urbino on January 23, 1517.

He defeated the Papal condottiero Francesco del Monte and entered the city hailed by the population.

Pope Leo X reacted by hastily hiring an army of 10,000 troops under Lorenzo II de' Medici, Renzo di Ceri, Giulio Vitelli and Guido Rangoni and sending it against Urbino. Lorenzo was wounded by a bullet from an arquebus on April 4 during the siege of the Mondolfo castle, and returned to Tuscany. He was replaced by Cardinal Bibbiena. The latter was however unable to control the troops, and, defeated with relevant losses at Monte Imperiale, was forced to retreat to Pesaro.

The war was however ended by the lack of money of Francesco Maria della Rovere, who soon found himself unable to pay the troops hired at Verona. After some unfruitful ravages in Tuscany and Umbria, he began to seek for a diplomatic settlement with the pope. In September they signed a treaty by which della Rovere was relieved of all ecclasiastical censures and was left free to retreat to Mantua with all his artillery, as well as the rich library collected in Urbino by the former duke Federico III da Montefeltro.

In 1626, Pope Urban VIII definitively incorporated the Duchy into the papal dominions, the gift of the last Della Rovere duke, in retirement after the assassination of his heir, to be governed by the archbishop. Its great library was removed to Rome and added to the Vatican Library in 1657. The later history of Urbino is part of the history of the Papal States and, after 1861, of the Kingdom (later Republic) of Italy.

The clay earth of Urbino, which still supports industrial brickworks, supplied a cluster of earthenware manufactories (botteghe) making the tin-glazed pottery known as maiolica. Simple local wares were being made in the 15th century at Urbino, but after 1520 the Della Rovere dukes, Francesco Maria I della Rovere and his successor Guidobaldo II, encouraged the industry, which exported wares throughout Italy, first in a manner calledistoriato using engravings after Mannerist painters, then in a style of light arabesques andgrottesche after the manner of Raphael's stanze at the Vatican. Other centers of 16th century wares in the Duchy of Urbino were at Gubbio and Castel Durante. The great name in Urbino majolica was that of Nicolo Pillipario's son Guido Fontana.

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                                                        Urbino’s Top 5:

   
1. The Duomo di Urbino  is a church founded in 1021 over a 6th century religious edifice. The 12th century plan was turned 90 degrees from the current one, which is a new construction also started by Federico II and commissioned to Francesco di Giorgio Martini, author of the Ducal Palace. Finished only in 1604, the Duomo had a simple plan with a nave and two aisles, and was destroyed by an earthquake in 1789. The church was again rebuilt by the Roman architect Giuseppe Valadier, the works lasting until 1801. The new church has a typical neo-classicist appearance, with a majestic dome. It houses a San Sebastian from 1557, an Assumption by Carlo Maratta (1701) and the famous Last Supper by Federico Barocci (1603–1608).
2. Raphael's House  The Renaissance painter Raphael was born in Urbino (in 1483) and the house where he was born is now a delightful little museum - a simple fresco of the Madonna and Child in one of the rooms may have been one of his earliest works. You will find it in Via Raffaello that runs up from Piazza della Repubblica.
3. Albornz Fortress  The small fortress at the top of Urbino is a great place for views of the town and surrounding hills. It was built in the fourteenth century and was the defensive point for the walls, built in the sixteenth century. It's now a library and public park.
4. Oratorio di S. Giovanni Battista in Via Barocci is a small church entirely decorated in 1416 with wall-to-ceiling frescoes by the Marchegiani painters Jacopo and Lorenzo Salimbeni. Ignore the fact that few outside the Marches have ever heard of the brothers; just enjoy the brilliance of their earthy vision of the life of St John the Baptist and a terrifying Crucifixion - or just count the number of playful small dogs you can spot in the lively scenes.
5. The Ducal Palace is a Renaissance building in the Italian city of Urbino. One of the most important monuments in Italy, it is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site. The construction of the Ducal Palace was begun for Duke Federico III da Montefeltro around the mid-fifteenth century by the Florentine Maso di Bartolomeo. The new construction included the pre-existing Palace of the Jole.Luciano Laurana, an architect from Dalmatia who had been influenced by Brunelleschi's cloisters in Florence, designed the façade, the famous courtyard and the great entrance staircase. The palace continued in use as a government building into the 20th century, housing municipal archives and offices, and public collections of antique inscriptions and sculpture. Restorations completed in 1985 have reopened the extensive subterranean network to visitors.
   
   
   

   

   
   

References: http://www.le-marche.com/Marche/html/urbino.htm

Ancona

Ancona

Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marches region, in central Italy. Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region.

The city is located 280 km (170 mi) northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic Sea, between the slopes of the two extremities of the promontory of Monte Conero, Monte Astagno and Monte Guasco.

Ancona is one of the main ports on the Adriatic Sea, especially for passenger traffic, and is the main economic and demographic centre of the region.

Ancona was founded by Greek settlers from Syracuse about 387 BC, who gave it its name: Ancona is a very slightly modified transliteration of the Greek Αγκων, meaning "elbow"; the harbour to the east of the town was originally protected only by the promontory on the north, shaped like an elbow. Greek merchants established a Tyrian purple dye factory here. In Roman times it kept its own coinage with the punning device of the bent arm holding a palm branch, and the head of Aphrodite on the reverse, and continued the use of the Greek language.

When it became a Roman colony is doubtful. It was occupied as a naval station in the Illyrian War of 178 BC. Julius Caesar took possession of it immediately after crossing the Rubicon. Its harbour was of considerable importance in imperial times, as the nearest to Dalmatia, and was enlarged by Trajan, who constructed the north quay with his Syrian architect Apollodorus of Damascus. At the beginning of it stands the marble triumphal arch with a single archway, and without bas-reliefs, erected in his honour in 115 by the Senate and Roman people.

Ancona was successively attacked by the Goths, Lombards and Saracens between the Third and Fifth Centuries, but recovered its strength and importance. It was one of the cities of the Pentapolis of the Roman Exarchate of Ravenna in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries. After Charlesmagne's conquest of northern Italy, it became the capital of the Marca di Ancona, whence the name of the modern region. After 1000, Ancona became increasingly independent, eventually turning into an important maritime republic (together with Gaeta, Trani and Ragusa, it is one of those not appearing on the Italian naval flag), often clashing against the nearby power of Venice. An oligarchic republic, Ancona was ruled by six Elders, elected by the three terzieri into which the city was divided: S. Pietro, Porto and Capodimonte. It had a coin of its own, the agontano, and a series of laws known as Statuti del mare e del Terzenale and Statuti della Dogana. Ancona was usually allied with Ragusa and the Byzantine Empire. In 1137, 1167 and 1174 it was strong enough to push back the forces of the Holy Roman Empire. Anconitan ships took part in the Crusades, and their navigators included Cyriac of Ancona. In the struggle between the Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors that troubled Italy from the 12th century onwards, Ancona sided with the Guelphs.

Ancona, as well as Venice, became a very important destination for merchants from the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century. The Greeks formed the largest of the communities of foreign merchants. They were refugees from former Byzantine or Venetian territories that were occupied by the Ottomans in the late 15th and 16th c. The first Greek community was established in Ancona early in the 16th c. Natalucci, the 17th c. historian of the city, notes the existence of 200 Greek families in Ancona at the opening of the 16th c. Most of them came from northwestern Greece, i.e. the Ionian islands and Epirus. In 1514, Dimitri Caloiri of Ioannina obtained reduced custom duties for Greek merchants coming from the towns of Ioannina, Arta and Avlona in Epirus. In 1518 a Jewish merchant of Avlona succeeded in lowering the duties paid in Ancona for all “the Levantine merchants, subjects to the Turk”.

In 1531 the Confraternity of the Greeks (Confraternita dei Greci) was established which included Orthodox and Catholic Greeks. They secured the use of the Church of St. Anna dei Greci and were granted permission to hold services according to the Greek and the Latin rite. The church of St. Anna had existed since the 13th c., initially as “Santa Maria in Porta Cipriana”, on ruins of the ancient Greek walls of Ancona.

In 1534 a decision by Pope Paul III favoured the activity of merchants of all nationalities and religions from the Levant and allowed them to settle in Ancona with their families. A Venetian travelling through Ancona in 1535 recorded that the city was “full of merchants from every nation and mostly Greeks and Turks”. In the second half of the 16th c., the presence of Greek and other merchants from the Ottoman Empire declined after a series of restrictive measures taken by the Italian authorities and the pope.

Disputes between the Orthodox and Catholic Greeks of the community were frequent and persisted until 1797 when the city was occupied by France who closed all the religious confraternities and confiscated the archive of the Greek community. The church of St. Anna dei Greci was re-opened to services in 1822. In 1835, in the absence of a Greek community in Ancona, it passed to the Latin Church.

Differently from other cities of northern Italy, Ancona never became a seignory. The sole exception was the rule of the Malatesta, who took the city in 1348 taking advantage of the black death and of a fire that had destroyed many of its important buildings. The Malatesta were ousted in 1383. In 1532 it definitively lost its freedom and became part of the Papal States, under Pope Clement VII. Symbol of the papal authority was the massive Citadel. Together with Rome, and Avignon in southern France, Ancona was the sole city in the Papal States in which the Jews were allowed to stay after 1569, living in the ghetto built after 1555.

In 1733 Pope Clement XII extended the quay, and an inferior imitation of Trajan's arch was set up; he also erected a Lazaretto at the south end of the harbour, Luigi Vanvitelli being the architect-in-chief. The southern quay was built in 1880, and the harbour was protected by forts on the heights. From 1797 onwards, when the French took it, it frequently appears in history as an important fortress. Ancona entered in the Kingdom of Italy when Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière surrendered here on 29 September 1860, eleven days after his defeat at Castelfidardo.

During World War II, in July 1944, the city was taken by the Polish II Corps as part of an Allied operation to gain access to a seaport closer to the Gothic Line in order to shorten their lines of communication for the advance into northern Italy.

                                                        Ancona’s Top 5:

   
1. The Cathedral of Ancona, dedicated to Judas Cyriacus, was consecrated at the beginning of the 11th century and completed in 1189. Some writers suppose that the original church was in the form of a basilica and belonged to the 7th century. An early restoration was completed in 1234. It is a fine Romanesque building in grey stone, built in the form of a Greek cross, and other elements of Byzantine art. It has a dodecagonal dome over the centre slightly altered by Margaritone d'Arezzo in 1270. The façade has a Gothic portal, ascribed to Giorgio da Como (1228), which was intended to have a lateral arch on each side. The interior, which has a crypt under each transept, in the main preserves its original character. It has ten columns which are attributed to the temple of Venus. The church was restored in the 1980s.
2. The Arch of Trajan, 18 m high, erected in 114/115 as an entrance to the causeway atop the harbour wall in honour of the emperor who had made the harbour, is one of the finest Roman monuments in Le Marche. Most of its original bronze enrichments have disappeared. It stands on a high podium approached by a wide flight of steps. The archway, only 3 m wide, is flanked by pairs of fluted Corinthian columns on pedestals. An attic bears inscriptions. The format is that of the Arch of Titus in Rome, but made taller, so that the bronze figures surmounting it, of Trajan, his wife Plotina and sister Marciana, would figure as a landmark for ships approaching Rome's greatest Adriatic port.
3. The Lazzaretto (Laemocomium or "Mole Vanvitelliana"), planned by architect Luigi Vanvitelli in 1732 is a pentagonal building covering more than 20,000 m², built to protect the military defensive authorities from the risk of contagious diseases eventually reaching the town with the ships. Later it was used also as a military hospital or as barracks; it is currently used for cultural exhibits.
4. The National Archaeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale) is housed in the Palazzo Ferretti, built in the late Renaissance by Pellegrino Tibaldi; it preserves frescoes by Federico Zuccari. The Museum is divided into several sections:
   Prehistoric section, with palaeolithic and neolithic artefacts, objects of the Copper Age and of the Bronze Age. protohistoric section, with the richest existing collection of the Picenian civilization; the section includes a remarkable collection of Greek ceramics
   Greek-Hellenistic section, with coins, inscriptions, glassware and other objects from the necropolis of Ancona. Roman section, with a statue of Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, carved sarcophagi and two Roman beds with fine decorations in ivory.
5. The Loggia dei Mercanti is a historical palace in Ancona. The palace was begun in 1442 by architect Giovanni Pace, also known as Sodo, in an economically flourishing period for Ancona. It was built near the port, which was the trade point of the mercantile republic in medieval times, in order to provide a meeting point for the traders. The building was restored in 1558-1561 after a fire, under the direction of Pellegrino Tibaldi, who also frescoed the central hall. The current façade was designed by the Dalmatian architect Giorgio da Sebenico, who worked to it in 1451 to 1459. It is divided into four vertical sections, topped by a pinnacle. Each one has a statue, representing (from left), Hope, Fortitude, Justice and Charity. The two side sections have two stained glass, ogival windows. In the upper sectors are blind double mullioned windows and, in the centre, is an equestrian statue of the Roman emperor Trajan. The Loggia was damaged by the Allied bombings during World War II, and was restored in the late 20th century. 

Pesaro

Pesaro

Pesaro is a city and comune in the Italian region of Le Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, on the Adriatic. Fishery, furniture industry and tourism are the main strengths of the local economy.

The city was founded as Pisaurum by the Romans in 184 BC as colony in the territory of the Picentes, the people who lived on the northeast coast during the Iron Age. A settlement of the latter tribe has been found at Novilara. The northern Picentes were invaded in the 4th century BC by the Gallic Senones, earlier by the Etruscans, and when the Romans reached the area the population was an ethnic mixture. Within it the Gauls at least were still distinct, as the Romans separated them out and expelled them from the country.

Under the Roman administration Pesaro, a hub across the Via Flaminia, became an important center of trading and craftmanship. After the fall of the Western Empire, Pesaro was occupied by the Ostrogoths, and destroyed by Vitigis (539) in the course of the Gothic War. Hastily rebuilt five years later after the Byzantine reconquets, it formed the so-called Pentapolis, part of the Exarchate of Ravenna. After the Lombard and Frank conquests of that city, Pesaro became part of the Papal States.

During Renaissance it was ruled by the Malatesta (1285–1445), Sforza (1445–1512) and Della Rovere (1513–1631). Under the latter family, who elected it as capital of their duchy, Pesaro lived its most flourishing age, with the construction of numerous public and private palaces, while a new line of walls (the Mura Roveresche) was erected. On September 11, 1860 the Piedmontese troops entered the city, and Pesaro was subsequently annexed to the new Kingdom of Italy.

At the heart of the city lies the wide main square, Piazza del Popolo. Sipping a cool drink from one of the smart bars flanking the piazza, admire the sea-horses and tritons that decorate the sparkling fountain in the centre. Then let your eyes wander over the Palazzo Ducale that vies for your attention with the imperious post office building. The clean-lined Renaissance palace, recently restored, was built in the middle of the 15th century by the ruling Sforza family. It now houses local government offices and an exhibition space open to the public. Take a moment to walk into the imposing courtyard.

Leaving the square towards the sea along Via Rossini you'll find on your right the modest house where Italy's great opera composer Gioachino Rossini was born in 1792; it is now a small shrine to the composer. The annual Rossini Opera Festival in August has earned a world-wide reputation for performing works from his large repertoire of bel canto operas.

The city was once noted for its ceramic workshops that turned out the brightly painted earthenware known asmajolica. In the Musei Civici (Civic Museums) in Piazza Toschi Mosca (just off via Rossini) you can browse through one of Italy's finest collections of Renaissance and baroque pottery, much of it striking for its spontaneous, almost modern, use of colour and design.

If crockery leaves you cold, the warmth of Giovanni Bellini's masterpiece, the Coronation of the Virgin in the adjoining Pinacoteca shouldn't. This large painting with a series of smaller panels, originally created as an altarpiece, catches the eye with its sun-drenched colours and rounded, sculptural figures. The gallery also has a large collection of interesting, if less important, Renaissance pictures.

La Rocca Costanza

The castle in the background of Bellini's painting is the Sforza family fortress at nearby Gradara - it was Pesaro's ruling lord, Costanzo Sforza, who commissioned the picture from the Venetian artist. If you're driving north on the motorway you will catch sight of it a few miles from Pesaro - the view has hardly changed since the day Bellini painted it.

Centuries before the Sforza family ruled Pesaro, the city was already a thriving Roman colony, founded in 184 BC, probably on the foundations of an even older settlement . For lost property from Roman Pisaurum visit the Museo Archeologico Oliveriano in via Mazza to the west of the main square. 

Keep heading straight down via Rossini and you will eventually find yourself on the sea-front and looking at one of the city's most flamboyant buildings, the Villino Ruggeri. This heavily stuccoed confection is one of the finest examples of the Italian Liberty style that swept the Adriatic Riviera at the turn of the 20th century.

Like most Italian beaches, the 3 km strand here is laid out with serried ranks of umbrellas and deck chairs but it is rarely overcrowded. For a more secluded beach with green hills as a backdrop, make for Baia Flaminia just to the north of the centre. As well as sections with all the gear where you have to pay, there are also free stretches of public beach. You'll also find free, uncluttered public beaches just south of the town on the SS16 road towards Fano. 

Cooking in the Marche is deeply rooted in peasant tradition and remains impervious to the arrival of frozenbastoncini di pesce (fish fingers). Here the home cook rather than the professional chef rules and even the smartest restaurants seek to produce food just like nonna, or grandmother, used to make.

The use of fresh, top quality materials assembled with the minimum of fuss marks marchigiano food. But as dishes are strictly based on tradition and local produce, each local area has its distinctive cucina tipica. As with any rural diet, much use is made of food gathered from the wild; funghi, game, nuts, field herbs and - the area's greatest culinary treasure - truffles are an important feature in the Marche.

Not surprisingly, the best food is still to be had in Marche homes rather than in restaurants. The arrival, however, of tourists in smaller towns and villages has often raised the standards in local restaurants and led to the "rediscovery" of long lost traditional dishes.

The old labels ristorante, trattoria and osteria have become somewhat interchangeable in recent years; many of the smarter, and most expensive places, call themselves osterie and take pride in reinterpreting strictly local dishes with great flair. Many restaurants also double as a pizzeria, but note that pizzas are usually only available in the evening when the wood-fired oven is lit.

Generally, though, a ristorante will at least have a written menu and a broader choice of wines. In trattorie, particularly in country areas, you will often have to cope with a menu rattled off at your table by the proprietor - at your blank looks a son or daughter with some English or French will often be brought out from the back to assist.

Avoid the temptation just to order dishes whose names are familiar to you from back home - you will frequently be missing the best the house has to offer. If you are touring in summer or early autumn, look out for posters advertising the local sagra - a festival dedicated to a town's particular speciality where you can try the food in question in every guise imaginable. 

                                                        Pesaro’s Top 5:

   
1. The Ducal Palace, constructed by Alessandro Sforza in the second half of the 15th century. The façade has a portico with six arcades supported by six heavy pilasters and an upper floor with five windows crowned by coats of arms, festoons and puttoes.
2. Pesaro Cathedral Basilica, built in the 5th century over remains of a late Roman edifice and dedicated to St. Terence during the Middle Ages. The façade, in Romanesque-Gothic style, is unfinished: it has a simple ogival portal surmounted by a band of small arches. Step inside to see the remarkable mosaic floor uncovered in 2000. The beautiful early Christian work dates from the 6th century and can be admired through glass panels set in the suspended modern floor. This vast work of art belongs to the same period as the magnificent Byzantine mosaics at Ravenna. In some points you can also glimpse an even earlier and deeper mosaic floor dating from as early as the 4th century.
3. The Rocca Costanza (Castle), built in the 15th century by Costanzo Sforza, later for a time used as prison. It has a square plan with four cylindrical corner towers and a wide dry moat.  The building was named after Costanzo Sforza, who had it built between 1474 and 1483. The initial design of Giorgio Marchesi Settignano, but soon after was assigned to another architect, probably the great Luciano Laurana, the Work continued under the guidance of Cherubino from Milan. In 1500 Cesare Borgia occupied Pesaro and the fortress, The interior features an arcade courtyard with round arches. The central arch is flanked by two round with garlands marble, beneath which elegant inscriptions recalling the two main architechts of the Rock. Newly renovated in 1657, the Rock was turned into prison in 1864 until 1989. It is currently used as a venue for cultural events, including those linked to the annual Rossini Opera Festival.
4. The birthplace of Gioacchino Rossini, located at 34 Via Rossini. It has a museum dedicated to the composer, with manifestoes, prints, portraits and his spinet.
5. The Palla Di Pomodoro In Freedom Square, at the center of the gardens, there is a huge sphere with characteristic mechanisms, created by renowned sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, is now a symbol of Pesaro and the square is a meeting of citizens. The grand ball lying on the surface of the water of a fountain from which one looks the sea, is the bronze cast made in 1998 by sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro based on the original made in 1967 for Expo ' Montreal. The original work is located in Rome today outside the main entrance of the Foreign Ministry headquarters. Since the seventies,  the Great Ball has become a traditional meeting place and to provide information to visitors passing through town. In the late '90s it was covered with bronze and placed at the center of a large fountain, mainly to prevent degradation and vandalism.                                                                                                                                                        

References: http://www.le-marche.com/Marche/html/pesaro.htm
                 http://www.italyheaven.co.uk/lemarche/pesaro.html