Return to Marche (The Marches) photos

Marche (The Marches) is one of 21 regions in Italy, lying south and east of Tuscany and extending from the Apennines to the Adriatic. The region includes much fertile farmland, coastal fishing and shipbuilding, and tourism in its dramatic national parklands and on the Adriatic coast. Chief cities include Urbino, Ancona, Loreto, and Pesaro. The tiny sovereign nation of San Marino is located at the northern border. The landscape is beautiful and often dramatic. Most people live in small towns, often atop hills, affording them protection in the early days and impressive vistas today.

Our favorite town in this region is San Leo. While Hachette guide describes it as a "typical medieval Montefeltro town," its dramatic location makes it far from typical. It sits atop an enormous rock mass above steep cliffs, overlooking beautiful farmland. Its 3,000 citizens can actually see the Adriatic. The town features a large castle called the Forte (see picture, which Machiavelli described as the ideal fortress, and two impressive churches: the 12C Romanesque-Gothic Duomo, built on the ruins of a Roman temple, and the smaller but more impressive (to us) parish church, Pieve (exterior and interior pictured here), which dates from 8C-9C, with 11C additions.

Ravenna is much larger (137,000) and in its own way just as beautiful. The Etruscan and later Roman settlement went through the usual history of capture by Germans, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Lombards, Ghibellines, Venetians, etc., finally being incorporated into the States of the Church until the establishment of the Italian nation. It has long been known for its mosaics, and now contains some of the finest examples in the world. One from the 5C is shown here. (Galla Placida was sister of the Roman Emperor Honorius; her second husband was Constantius III and her son was Valentinian III.) A famous attraction in Ravenna is the Tomb of Theodoric, 5C, a huge two-story rotunda topped by a single domed rock weighing 23 tons and brought from Syria—another monument to another simple, modest ruler!

The final picture is from the town of Cortona, one of the oldest towns in Italy. It was one of the 12 cities of the Etruscan League, later becoming a Roman colony.