Marche

Lore & Background

Marche was known in ancient times as the Picenum territory. In the Iron Age, the region was almost entirely inhabited by the Picentes. In the fourth century BC, the northern area was occupied by the Senones, a tribe of Gauls. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region was invaded by the Goths, then became part of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna, with Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Senigallia, and Ancona forming the so-called Pentapolis (the Pentapolis Maritima). After the fall of the Exarchate, it was briefly held by the Lombards, but was conquered by Charlemagne in the late eighth century. In the ninth to eleventh centuries, the marches of Camerino, Fermo and Ancona were created under the Carolingian Empire, hence the modern name.

Reader's Guide

Marche was nominally part of the Papal States, but most of the territory was under local lords, while major cities ruled themselves as free communes. In the twelfth century, the commune of Ancona resisted both the imperial authority of Frederick Barbarossa and the Republic of Venice, and was a maritime republic on its own. During the Renaissance, the region was fought over by rival aristocratic families, such as the Malatesta of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano and the house of Montefeltro of Urbino. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, many cities of the Marche were important cultural, artistic and commercial centres, the most prominent being Ancona, Pesaro, Urbino, Camerino and Ascoli Piceno. Urbino was a major centre of Renaissance history and the birthplace of Raphael. The region is also the birthplace of Gentile da Fabriano, Cyriacus of Ancona, Donato Bramante, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Giacomo Leopardi, Gioachino Rossini and Maria Montessori.

Did You Know?

• The name Marche derives from the plural of the medieval word marca, a march or mark, referring to a borderland territory of the Carolingian Empire.
• Urbino, in Marche, was the birthplace of the Renaissance painter and architect Raphael.

The Hilly Heart of Central Italy

Marche stretches across 9,366 square kilometres of central Adriatic coastline, bordered by Emilia-Romagna to the north, Tuscany and Umbria to the west, Lazio and Abruzzo to the south, and the Adriatic Sea along its entire eastern edge. The Apennine range dominates the landscape, running longitudinally along the region's eastern border before descending through hilly terrain toward the sea. Except for Monte Vettore at 2,476 metres, no peak exceeds 2,400 metres, and the hilly zone occupies roughly two-thirds of the total area. Deep river gorges cut through the main range, the most celebrated being those of the Furlo, the Rossa, and the Frasassi. The 173-kilometre coastline is largely flat and straight, broken only by the hilly stretch between Gabicce and Pesaro in the north and the eastern slopes of Monte Conero near Ancona. Climate shifts from a continental pattern of cold, snowy winters in the interior to a milder Mediterranean feel along the shore, with annual rainfall between 1,000 and 1,500 millimetres inland and 600 to 800 millimetres on the coast. A curious geographic oddity is the Umbrian enclave of Monte Ruperto, entirely encircled by the Province of Pesaro and Urbino.

From Picenum to the Kingdom of Italy

The territory now called Marche was known in antiquity as Picenum, home in the Iron Age to the Picentes, whose artefacts are still displayed in the National Archaeological Museum in Ancona. By the fourth century BC, the Senones, a Gallic tribe, had occupied the northern reaches. The Romans arrived after the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BC, founding colonies linked to the capital by the Via Flaminia and Via Salaria, while Ascoli became a stronghold of Italic resistance during the Social War of 91 to 87 BC. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Goths swept through the region, followed by Byzantine rule under the Exarchate of Ravenna, where Ancona, Fano, Pesaro, Rimini, and Senigallia formed the Pentapolis. Charlemagne conquered the area in the late eighth century, and by the ninth to eleventh centuries the marches of Camerino, Fermo, and Ancona were established, giving the region its modern name. Ancona in the twelfth century defied both Frederick Barbarossa and Venice, operating as a maritime republic. The Renaissance saw the Malatesta and Montefeltro families contest control, and the Duchy of Urbino was not dissolved until 1631. Napoleonic upheavals brought a brief Republic of Ancona and eventual incorporation into the Kingdom of Italy, but the region returned to Papal rule until the plebiscite of 4 November 1860 finally annexed it to the unified Italian state.

A Cradle of Renaissance Genius

From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, Marche's cities—Ancona, Pesaro, Urbino, Camerino, and Ascoli Piceno—flourished as vital centres of culture, art, and commerce. Urbino stands as the region's most celebrated cultural landmark, serving as a major hub of Renaissance history and the birthplace of Raphael, one of the era's most consequential painters and architects. The region's roster of extraordinary native sons and daughters reads like a who's who of Western civilisation: the painter Gentile da Fabriano, the traveller-scholar Cyriacus of Ancona, the architect Donato Bramante, the composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, the poet Giacomo Leopardi, the operatic giant Gioachino Rossini, and the pioneering educator Maria Montessori all drew their first breath on Marche soil. Ancona, the capital and largest city, anchors a region of nearly 1.5 million inhabitants, making it the thirteenth most populous of Italy's twenty regions. The National Archaeological Museum of the Marche Region, housed in Ancona, preserves artefacts from the Picentes era, linking the region's modern identity to its deepest Iron Age roots.

A Land Shaped by Conflict and Catastrophe

Marche's history is punctuated by devastating natural and military events. During World War I, the Adriatic campaign brought the Bombardment of Ancona, while the 1916 Rimini earthquakes damaged or destroyed buildings across Pesaro, Fano, and their hinterlands. World War II saw the Battle of Ancona fought on Italian soil. The region's vulnerability to seismic activity continued into the modern era, with powerful earthquakes striking in both August and October of 2016, and heavy flooding sweeping through Marche in September 2022. The mountainous interior has long constrained movement, limiting north-south travel to twisting roads over mountain passes, while a 19th-century railway from Bologna to Brindisi traces the narrow coastal strip. In a more recent administrative shift, a 2006 referendum led to seven Montefeltro municipalities—Casteldelci, Maiolo, Novafeltria, Pennabilli, San Leo, Sant'Agata Feltria, and Talamello—being detached from the Province of Pesaro and Urbino to join the Province of Rimini in Emilia-Romagna on 15 August 2009.