Fano (Fan in the Gallo-Piceno dialect) is an Italian town of 60 295 inhabitants in the province of Pesaro and Urbino in the Marche region. The city is famous for its carnival, one of the oldest in Italy. It is the third most populous city in the Marche, after Ancona and Pesaro.
Fano was a Piceno center, as evidenced by sporadic finds that
took place in the city and the excavations of Montegiove and
Roncosambaccio.
It was then an important Roman center, known
as Fanum Fortunae, a name that refers to the "Temple of Fortuna",
probably erected to witness the battle of Metauro: it was the year
207 BC. and the Roman legions defeated the army of the Carthaginian
general Asdrubale, killing the leader who, after having crossed the
Alps with the war elephants, intended to rejoin his brother
Hannibal.
The city had a notable development during the Roman
domination thanks to its strategic position on the road that
connected the Tiber valley to Gallia Cisalpina. In 49 BC Gaius
Julius Caesar conquered it together with Pesaro, thus starting the
Civil War against the antagonist Pompeo.
Only later Caesar
Octavian Augustus endowed the settlement with surrounding walls
(still partially visible), elevating the settlement to the status of
a Roman colony with the name of Colonia Julia Fanestris.
A
few centuries later, in 271 AD, the Battle of Fano took place near
it which marked the end of the Alemanni's attempt to reach Rome,
defeated by the emperor Aurelian.
During the invasion of
Italy (452-453) by Attila, Fano sent, together with the other nearby
cities of Rimini and Ancona, military aid to the city of Aquileia
which in 452 was under siege. The Fano commander Bartolagi da Fano
died during the siege and his remains were then moved to the church
of S. Pietro in Episcopio in Fano. The city of Fano was sacked by
Attila in 453 AD. before heading to Rome where, according to
tradition, his advance was stopped by Pope Leo I.
During the
Gothic War of the 6th century, due to its position in the
connections between northern and southern Italy, it was besieged and
devastated by the Ostrogoths of Vitige (538) and shortly afterwards
rebuilt by the Byzantine army of Belisario and Narsete.
Subsequently he became part of the maritime Pentapolis (Rimini,
Pesaro, Fano, Senigallia, Ancona) of which he headed. Subsequently
it underwent the occupation of the Lombards and the Franks, until
Otto III donated it to Pope Sylvester II.
In 1141 the city
became a protectorate of the Republic of Venice following the
signing of a treaty.
In the thirteenth century Fano became a
municipality; in the following century it was briefly under the Este
dominion, after which it was torn apart by the internal struggle
between two families: the del Cassero and the da Carignano families.
At the end of the 13th century the city passed under the
Malatesta dominion of Rimini, thanks to a plot hatched by the latter
against the two rival families. The Malatesta family remained in
power in the city until 1463, when Sigismondo Malatesta had to leave
Fano to the Duke of Urbino Federico da Montefeltro after a long
siege, during which the Arch of Augustus, symbol of the city, was
damaged. The population refused to become part of the Duchy of
Urbino and therefore became an ecclesiastical vicariate.
During the Napoleonic occupation of the Papal State it was sacked
and severely bombed by the Bonaparte army. Several works of art made
their way to France due to the Napoleonic spoliation. According to
Canova's catalog, of the three works of art cataloged in Fano and
sent to France, none returned. Among them the work of Guido Reni
sent to the Musee Napoleon Christ delivers the keys to San Pietro,
formerly at the Church of San Pietro in Valle, but not returned by
the Museum after the Congress of Vienna.
Fano actively
participated in the Risorgimento uprisings with the creation of
provisional governments.
During the First World War
(1915-1918) it suffered numerous Austrian naval bombardments and
also in the Second World War (1940-1945) being on the Gothic Line it
suffered numerous Allied air raids aimed at the destruction of its
railway and road bridges and, by the German army in retreat, the
destruction of almost all its bell towers (except those of S.
Francesco di Paola and San Marco), the civic tower, the keep of the
Malatesta fortress and its fishing port, considered by the enemy
sensitive infrastructures not to be leave in the hands of allies.
Fano is surrounded to the north-west by hills that
slope gently near the Arzilla stream. The city is, albeit slightly,
elevated above sea level (Arco di Augusto altitude 17 m). The coast
is divided into Lido and Saxony, both with low coasts, the first
sandy, the second gravelly. To the south is the so-called "Piana del
Metauro", one of the few flat areas in the Marche, which also
extends inland for a few kilometers. The southern coast is divided
into Torrette, Ponte Sasso and Metaurilia, the latter founded after
a land reclamation work in 1938.
It borders to the north-west
with the municipality of Pesaro; to the west, it borders through the
valley of the Arzilla stream and the hills that divide it from that
of Foglia with the municipalities of Mombaroccio and Cartoceto
(rising above 300 m a.s.l. in the territory of Cartoceto); to the
south, climbing steeply to about 200 m a.s.l. it borders with the
municipality of Piagge (co-capital of the new municipality of Terre
Roveresche), to the east with the municipality of San Costanzo
climbing some gentle hills and with the municipality of Mondolfo.
The territory of Fano is crossed by the Vallato del Porto or Canale
Albani, an artificial canal fed by the Metauro river. The Vallato
passes through the Liscia hydroelectric power station and enters the
canal port of Fano.
Local climatic data are
recorded by the Fano weather station.
Fano, according to the
Köppen Classification, is included in the Csa climatic zone (humid
temperate climate to dry and very hot summer), while according to
the climatic classification of Italian municipalities it belongs to
zone E. As regards the seismic classification it belongs to zone 2:
average seismicity.