The cultural heritage

Index

The most outstanding of these is the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, situated in the Ducal Palace in Urbino. This architectural masterpiece contains magnificent pictures painted at the time of the Montefeltro (works by Agostino di Duccio, Luca Della Robbia, Luciano Laurana, Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Giusto di Gand, and Raphael) and the Della Rovere families (works by Titian, Federico Barocci, and Claudio Ridolfi). In Urbania, the Museo civico houses the largest collection of drawings by Federico Barocci after that in the Uffizi and two rare globes by Gerardo Mercatore.
In Pesaro, the Musei civici in Palazzo Mosca contain a pivotal work of the Italian Quattrocento, Giovanni Bellini’s monumental Coronation of the Virgin; in addition to Roman relics, at the Museo archeologico oliveriano artifacts of the Picene culture are on display, including the celebrated Stela of Novilara. The Museo civico and Pinacoteca in Fano, in the historic Palazzo Malatesta, house the magnificent Madonna della Rosa by Michele Giambono and a splendid series of paintings by leading 17th-century artists: Guido Reni, Guercino, Domenichino, Simone Cantarini, Mattia Preti, and Corrado Giaquinto.
In Ancona, the Museo archeologico nazionale delle Marche contains a vast range of exhibits relating to the early settlement of the region and its development until the Middle Ages, while the Pinacoteca civica houses masterpieces by Olivuccio di Ciccarello, Carlo Crivelli, Sebastiano del Piombo, Titian, Lorenzo Lotto, Orazio Gentileschi, Andrea Lilli, Guercino, Carlo Maratta, and Francesco Podesti. In Loreto, the Museo Pontificio della Santa Casa exhibits works by Lorenzo Lotto plus ten Flemish tapestries, produced from cartoons or copies of cartoons by the great Urbino painter Raphael. Jesi is of fundamental importance for its paintings by Lorenzo Lotto in the Pinacoteca of Palazzo Pianetti, with its splendid Galleria degli Stucchi, and the new Federico II Stupor Mundi multimedia museum.
Fabriano, with the Pinacoteca civica, reflects the lively artistic climate of the city that was the birthplace of Gentile da Fabriano, the greatest exponent of international Gothic style. In San Severino Marche, the Pinacoteca Tacchi-Venturi contains a polyptych by Paolo Veneziano, splendid panel paintings and frescoes by the brothers Lorenzo and Jacopo Salimbeni, and a large polyptych by Vittore Crivelli. The Pinacoteca in Fermo has one of the few paintings by Rubens in Italy, the Adoration of the Shepherds (1601), and Stories of St Lucy – eight small panels by Jacobello del Fiore, a masterpiece of international Gothic art. The Pinacoteca Civica in Ascoli Piceno has a wide range of works by Italian artists: Simone de Magistris, Titian, Guido Reni, Orazio de Ferrari, Luca Giordano, Carlo Maratta, Guercino, and Pelizza da Volpedo.

  • House-museums

    The house-museums in the Marche help convey an understanding of the region’s identity and culture. The main residences of illustrious citizens who brought global renown to their homeland are now open to visitors interested in where these major figures lived: the Casa Museo of Giacomo Leopardi in Recanati, the Casa Natale of Raphael in Urbino, Casa Rossini in Pesaro, and the Casa Museo of Osvaldo Licini in Monte Vidon Corrado.

  • Lorenzo Lotto in the Marche

    In Recanati, the artist, who was born in Venice in 1480 and died in Loreto around 1556, painted the Polyptych of San Domenico (1508) and other splendid masterpieces, such as the Transfiguration (c. 1512) and an Annunciation (c. 1528), which are displayed at a Pinacoteca Civica. From Recanati, the visitor in search of paintings by Lotto can continue to the various towns and villages in the region where the artist worked until his last days: Jesi, where, in the Pinacoteca, there are works of outstanding importance for the Italian Renaissance, the Deposition (1512), the St. Lucy Altarpiece (1538), the Visitation (1531-1534) and the Madonna of the Roses (1526); Loreto, where his last works, such as the poignant Presentation at the Temple, are kept; Ancona, where the Pinacoteca houses the imposing Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints (1532); Cingoli, where the Madonna of the Rosary, painted in 1539, is now kept in the Pinacoteca.
    Numerous works by Lotto are still to be found in the churches for which they were commissioned: in the province of Macerata, in Monte San Giusto, where the church of Santa Maria in Telusiano contains a spectacular Crucifixion and, just a few miles away, in Mogliano, the parish church houses an Assumption (1548); another painting of this subject, dating from 1555, is on the high altar of the church of San Francesco alle Scale in Ancona. Lotto’s long stay in the Marche preceded that of another Venetian artist, Claudio Ridolfi, who, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, lived in Corinaldo, in the province of Ancona, and painted a large number of works for towns and villages such as Ostra, Pergola, Arcevia, Mondolfo, and Fabriano.