Tourist Information

Postcards
A tour of the Town
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Senigallia is a town in the Marches, a region in central Italy. It lies on the Adriatic shore and halfway between Pesaro at north and Ancona at south. The towns of Urbino and Gubbio are reachable westwards across the mountains. Senigallia counts more than 40 thousand inhabitants. The town owes its charme to its untroubled sea and to a soft and velvet-like beach which stretches further than 10 km. But the sea is not the only attraction of Senigallia where in summer the population rises to more than 100 thousand people who fill the one hundred hotels of the town. Tourists are drawn by the presence of many monuments and works of art placed in the very ancient town centre, close to the seaside, a thing this, which very few towns along the Adriatic shore can boast.

Senigallia is easily reachable. You can arrive there by car on the motorway, or land into the near port and airport of Ancona. Or else you can get there by train or land into the well-equipped harbour of Senigallia.

A tour of the Town

The old town centre is quickly reached through many and easily-found passages. The centre is dominitad by the imposing building of the Rocca Roveresca, a castle. The building, perfectly well-preserved, dates back to 1480 and was built on a design by Baccio Pontelli. It is a typical example of the Renaissance military architecture, with a square plan and a tower at each corner. Inside, some remainings of the previous Roman fortification are still recognizable. It is possible to visit the dungeons, the communication-trenches and richly decorated rooms inside the castle which house the permanent exibition of the old town-centres of the Marches region.

Facing the castle is the Duke square with la Fontana dei Leoni, a 1596 fountain, and the Palace of the Dukes. At the right side of the square stands the Palazzetto Baviera, a fourteenth-century building, bearing some traces of the Renaissance. Inside, large rooms, furnished with valuable pieces of furniture, pictures and stucco decorations by the artist Brandani open up into the elegant courtyard. A visit to the Information Museum completes the tour of the square. The museum, recently instituted, presents many works of modern art, in particular in the field of the graphics and works by contemporary local artists.

From Piazza del Duca you pass into the near square of the Foro Annonario: an imposing neoclassic building contoured by a colomnade of 30 doric made-of-cotto- columns, 24 of which form two aisles and the other six the central body. Continuing your walk on the left, along the river Misa, you can admire the wonderful Portici Ercolani. They were built in the second half of the eighteenth century with huge blocks of white stone from the Istria to house the palace of the Fair.

Passed the first portico on the right, you can see beyond the river the imposing Porta Lambertina, built in 1756 in honour of Pope Benedetto XIV, on a design by the architect Rossi and the Cardinal Ercolani after whom the portici were named.

In the centre of the town, in Piazza Roma, stands the Town-Hall, built at the beginning of the seventeenth century. At the base of the palace, under an arch, is located the Neptun's Fountain. The statue is probably a remnant of the Roman age. The council-hall houses valuable portraits of the Della Rovere dukes made by different artists.

At the back pf the Town-Hall is the Mastai Palace built at the end of the sixteenth century. Pope Pio IX was born in this palace. Infact the palace houses a museum with the Pope's belongings. There are pieces of great historical, artistic and religious value beside a sacred art gallery, included the painting Madonna del Rosario by Federico Barocci.

From the left side of Roma square you can sight the beautiful front of the Chiesa della Croce. The church was built at the beginning of the seventeenth century: inside it is rectangular shaped and aisleless. The nave is richly decorated in the baroque style with a carved casson-ceiling. A beautiful canvass by the Barocci, Trasporto del Cristo al Sepolcro, hangs over the high altar.

Not far from there, is the Duomo whose construction was started in the mid-seventeenth century. Today it serves as a Cathedral, with a nave and two aisles separated by pillars. The church houses paintings by the Barocci, Ramazzani, and the statue of Pope IX together with the font where he was christened. In the capitular hall there is the thirteenth-century sarcofagus of St.Gaudenzio.

About two miles from the town centre, placed on a hill enjoying a beautiful landscape, is the Renaissance church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, built by order of the Duke Giovanni della Rovere. At the back of the high altar it is kept the well-known altarpiece by the Perugino, the Madonna in Trono e Santi.

Next to the church is the convent whose two cloisters are believed to be a work of Baccio Pontelli. The biggest cloister houses an elegant well with the heraldic bearings of the Della Rovere family.

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Regione Marche

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