The History

Stretched along the sea, near the mouth of the river Misa, Senigallia was founded in the IV century B.C. by the Gauls and it was the first Roman colony along the Adriatic shore.

The town was an important centre during the imperial age, but it was sacked by Alarico in 400. It soon rose again becoming one of the fulcra of the Pentapoli Marittima and of the Exarchate of Ravenna.

Under the rule of the Church it became a Free city in the twelfth century and it took an active part in the wars of the period. The town was of ghibelline traditions and underwent heavy defeats during the thirteenth century. Dante in a passage of the Paradise (Par.XVI, 75-78) quoted it among the cities bound to end (che termine hanno).

Senigallia was left in a state of decadence many years long and only during the second half of the fifteenth century it rose to a new life, first under the rule of Sigismondo di Malatesta and Giovanni della Rovere later.

In those years the town wall and the fortress were rebuilt.

The economical reprease due to the flourishing of the commerce and the agriculture are responsible for the steady repopulation of the town.

The port of Senigallia became the centre of the sea-trade of the Dukedom of Urbino and after the devolution in 1631 all the Papal States enjoyed of this status.

The heart of the town trades became the well-known Fiera della Maddalena, which reached its greatest importance during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, helped by the application of the duty-free in the port of Senigallia.

Along the banks of the town canal they traded in cereals, wood, spices and manufactures. It has been reckoned that during the years of greatest splendour about 500 ship landed into the port in occasion of the fair and more than 50 thousand foreigners arrived from the eastern states, from the north of Italy and from central Europe.

Carlo Goldoni wrote his play La Fiera di Senigallia in 1760 as a proof of the town's celebrity. The action of the play was set in town.

During the first half of the eighteenth century the town had more than 8 thousand inhabitants living inside the town wall. This number increased measureless during the fair so that the town could not cope with all those people.

That is why Pope Benedetto XIV decided to enlarge the urban area. At first the project consisted only in the trasformation and rationalisation of the existing structure, but in a second time the town extension was doubled and it returned to the size it had during the Roman age.

The decline of the fair, caused by various elements, compelled the town to find other means of sussistence and it turned to the industry of tourism. Infact in 1854 the baths (Stabilimento Bagni) were open up.

Regione Marche

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