Senigallia (S'nigaja in Gallo-Piceno dialect) is an Italian town of 44 247 inhabitants in the province of Ancona in the Marche region. It is a well-known tourist location. The Senigallia area constitutes the linguistic border between the Gallo-Italic languages and the Middle Italian dialects.
Church of the Cross
Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie
Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle
Church of the Immaculate
Conception
Church of San Martino
Church of the Madonna del Carmelo
and San Biagio Bishop and Martyr
Church of Santa Maria del Ponte al
Porto
Church of the Madonna della Misericordia, also known as the
Bedini Church
Church of the Magdalene
Seminary
Church of the
Madonna del Buon Consiglio (Cesano)
Church of the Good Shepherd
(Cesanella)
Rotonda a Mare
Ducal Palace and Duck Fountain
Bavaria sports
hall
Piazza Roma, with the Government Palace and the Neptune Fountain
Annonario Forum
Portici Ercolani
Palazzo Mastai - Pius IX Museum
Piazza Garibaldi, the fulcrum of the urban expansion wanted by Pope
Benedict XIV in the mid-18th century
Porta Lambertina (also called
Porta Fano by the people of Senigallia)
Porta Mazzini (also called
Porta Maddalena by the people of Senigallia)
Villa Mastai de
Bellegarde
Fortress of Senigallia
La Fenice archaeological area
The city riverfront is made up of 6 porticoed buildings built at two
different times in the 18th century, when it was decided to expand the
city by demolishing the stretch of walls facing that bank. The first
three made were those starting from the sea. If you pay attention you
can see how the eleventh pillar of the third portico seems "false". This
is because the first expansion stopped there, then subsequently the
portico and the building were further extended, conforming that pillar
to all the others. There are also engravings on the white Istrian stone
in thanks to Pope Pius VII.
Anyone who walks under the porticoes
will also notice that the flooring and the first string course frame of
the first portico, coming from the sea, present a sort of "bulge" about
halfway down. In that stretch there was one of the old access gates to
the city, next to which there was an old tower called "Isotteo". The two
were completely demolished, leaving only the foundations on which the
new porticoed building was built. Following the earthquake of 1930,
which also had a shaking pattern, the foundations of the tower "pushed"
the building above. This can be seen in particular when looking at the
building from the outside: while the upper frames which were redone
together with the roof are perfectly horizontal, the others and the base
of the portico actually have the bulge about halfway up the portico.
The first portico, due to its position directly exposed to the sea
and without tall buildings facing it, was hit several times by shelling
from the sea. Coincidentally, among the many, it was always the same
pillar that was hit on various occasions: the first time in 1799
(Napoleonic period) and again in 1915 at the beginning of the First
World War by Austrian ships. Two commemorative plaques placed on that
pillar, still visibly chipped today, remember those events.
The
last building on the riverfront, owned by the Curia, strangely does not
have any portico although initially foreseen in the urban expansion
project. This happened because it was not yet clear who and if would
ever build the building that separates the current Piazza del Duomo from
the river and if they would also build the portico envisaged by the
general project there, as actually happened. So the Curia, not wanting
to build a portico that would remain isolated and detached from the
others "as if it were a chick trying to chase its hen", opted for a
simpler construction without anything.
Senigallia was the birthplace of Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti known as Pope Pius IX. In the city there is still his family's noble palace, now re-proposed as it must have been at the time and home to a museum and library. Furthermore, during the restoration of the building called Foro Annonario, some writings "Viva Pio IX!" were found and preserved on a wall of the right hemicycle, under the portico. probably made in the first period after the acclamation to the papal title in 1846. By his decision, the Stabilimento Pio (Now "Opera Pia Mastai Ferretti") was built to assist the needy people of his hometown, also giving him the possession of land: it currently hosts a retirement home for the elderly which also operates thanks to the proceeds of the agricultural company that manages the land.
By plane
Ancona-Falconara airport is 15 km from Senigallia.
By car
The A14/E55 motorway passes inland less than 2 kilometers
from the city, where the Senigallia exit is also located. The main road
SS 16 (Adriatica), which runs parallel to the Adriatic coast, passes
through the city center.
On boat
The city has its own marina,
which can accommodate around 350 boats.
On the train
The
railway line along the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona passes right
through the center, where the 1st railway station is also located.
The universal means of getting around Senigallia is the bicycle. You
will find people of all ages using bicycles to get around the city.
Car traffic, however, has increased and sometimes even in this
cycling paradise we begin to feel the need for protected cycle paths. In
reality there is practically only one cycle path, which runs along the
entire seafront.
Getting around by car, although sometimes
unavoidable, can sometimes be difficult, especially in summer, when the
city is filled with tourists. Parking in particular can be a difficult
task.
The city center is largely closed to non-resident car
traffic.
There are some bus lines, but the service is not very
frequent.
Senigallia was founded between 389 and 383 BC. from the Gallic tribe of the Senones who had settled in the north of the Marche up to the valley of the Esino river, in the current province of Ancona: probably the choice, made according to the legend by the chieftain Brenno, was dictated by the presence of a low hill facing the sea and dominating the existing ford. From here, defined the "capital" of the Gauls in Italy, at the helm of Brenno they moved against Rome, winning its armies and withdrawing only after paying a heavy tax.
After the battle of Sentino (about 295 BC)
the Romans had definitive control over Campania, Etruria, Umbria and
precisely the territory between the Esino and Ariminum rivers
(Rimini) populated by the Senoni Gauls which was named since that
time Ager Gallicus.
In 284 BC at the push of Consul Manio
Curio Dentato (who won Pirro in Benevento), the Romans established
the Roman colony of Sena Gallica, the first on the Adriatic, in
place of what was the "capital" of the roosters in Italy, to
distinguish it from other colony Sena (now Siena) located in
Etruria, the current Tuscany.
In 207 BC the city was the
starting point of the Roman troops who struck a hard blow to the
Carthaginians on the banks of the Metauro river, defeating Asdrubale
Barca, brother of Hannibal, who was rushing to his aid in battle.
There are no further particular events to report during the
republican and imperial times for the city.
After being sacked by the Visigoths of Alaric
I in 400, at the time of the Lombard invasion of Italy the city
remained under Byzantine dominion under the direct control of the
Exarchate of Ravenna, forming together with Ancona, Fanum Fortunae
(Fano), Pisaurum ( Pesaro) and Ariminum (Rimini) the so-called
Byzantine Pentapolis and following all the historical events up to
the donation of the Pentapolis to the dominion of the Pope of Rome.
Established for some time the diocese and the bishopric, the
city experienced an interesting economic development, which saw the
establishment of the so-called Maddalena Fair around the thirteenth
century. But during the Middle Ages it clashed with the interests of
nearby cities, in particular Fano, Jesi and Ancona due to the
struggles between Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Italy.
Senigallia was conquered and largely destroyed by the troops of
Manfredi of Sicily, who had the walls demolished.
The
situation was made worse by the presence to the south of the city of
an old salt pan which, abandoned to itself, became an unhealthy and
unhealthy brackish swamp: these events reduced the city to little
more than a village perched around an old fortress built on the
remains of an ancient Roman watchtower.
Senigallia (known at
the time as Sinigaglia or Sinigallia) survived abandonment until
Pope Gregory XI decided during his papacy (1370 - 1378) to bring the
papal see back to Rome from Avignon, where it had meanwhile been
transferred. He delegated Cardinal Egidio Albornoz to restore the
papal authority in the territory of the Papal State: the latter also
visited "the village" and decided on a series of works to be carried
out, in particular the beginning of the reclamation of the brackish
marsh built in place of the ancient saline and the reinforcement of
the fort which was still a useful sighting tower on the sea.
In the first half of the 15th century the city,
which was slowly continuing to recover, ended up in the interest and
dominion of the Malatesta family from Rimini thanks to its
particular strategic position almost equidistant between Pesaro and
Ancona.
It was Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in particular
who took an interest in Senigallia, so much so that he was
considered the "re-founder" of the city. He decided to reconstruct
the city walls and defensive bastions, partly following the old
route of the demolished walls and thus creating a fortified city
with a rectangular shape, according to a project that had as its
base the cardo and the decumanus of the Roman and thirteenth-century
city and incorporating in the new defenses the fort built by
Albornoz, which from this moment became the nucleus on which the
Rocca Roveresca was subsequently built.
In addition to
renovating the city, it was necessary to repopulate and develop it,
for this reason Sigismondo gave new impetus to the old Maddalena
Fair and established tax breaks for those wishing to move to the
"new city", thus attracting many people from various parts of Italy.
These included the nucleus of the subsequent Jewish community which
helped to give new life to the city's trade.
However, the reconstruction was so expensive that it forced
Malatesta to contract debts with Pope Pius II, who for this reason
took possession of the city from him and passed it on to Antonio
Piccolomini. The appointment of Sixtus IV as Pope will transfer
control of Senigallia to Giovanni della Rovere, nephew of the
pontiff, who assumed the title of Duke: a sign of this passage still
remains in the writings IO DVX IO PRE [Giovanni, duke (of Sora and
Arce ) and prefect (of Rome)] engraved in the stones inside the
fortress called "roveresca".
In the following years Giovanni
della Rovere will marry Giovanna da Montefeltro, daughter of
Federico, head of the ancient and prestigious family that dominated
the city of Urbino and the whole north of the Marche. Giovanni died
in 1501 after 27 years, leaving the city modernized, creating a land
registry, widening the walls and giving life to the fortress to
defend itself from the sea side and perfecting the swamp reclamation
works. The architects Gentile Veterani (who designed the ravelin),
Luciano Laurana (author of various changes to the interiors) and
Baccio Pontelli (creator of the four towers placed at the corners of
the structure) are in charge of the Rocca. The latter also undertook
to design a new convent and the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie,
begun in 1491.
At the turn of the 15th and 16th
centuries, Senigallia briefly fell under the dominion of Cesare
Borgia, who went down in history as the Duke Valentino, described as
an example of homo novus in Machiavelli's The Prince. In a few
years, supported by his father Pope Alexander VI, he managed to
create a personal domain that went from present-day Romagna to part
of the north of the Marche, becoming a local power.
He became
famous in this context, passing to the historical chronicles
(Machiavelli), a meeting offered by Duke Valentino to his ancient
allies, but then traitors and opponents of the area, who finally
repentant and conciliators were kindly invited to the city in order
to reach a stable and peaceful accommodation. The story ended,
however, with a ruthless revenge known as the Senigallia massacre,
in which the duke treacherously had his guests arrested and then
killed by his entourage of armigers.
Valentino's experience
ended in 1503, when a simple illness prevented him from
participating in the intrigues for the election of the new Pope,
successor of his late father. Giulio II della Rovere climbed to the
throne of Pietro and took away the domains obtained up to now by
returning them to his relatives.
In fact, from the marriage
of Giovanni Della Rovere and Giovanna da Montefeltro, Francesco
Maria I Della Rovere was born in the meantime (1490), who was
adopted by the last duke of Montefeltro, Guidobaldo, and joined the
domains of the two families becoming Duke of Urbino in 1508 and Lord
of Senigallia.
From this moment the Della Rovere family ruled
over the Duchy of Urbino (with Pesaro) and Senigallia until the
death of the last male of the dynasty, which occurred in 1631:
according to the Salic law, with the lack of a male heir the duchy
was reinstated in the direct domains of the papacy. The ducal
palace, the town hall, the Church of the Cross were built and part
of the left bank of the Misa river, that is the port district, was
included in the pentagonal walls.
In the meantime, the
Maddalena Fair, which later became a free trade fair (since customs
duties were not paid), had established itself as one of the most
important fairs in the country, with trade in goods from every
corner of the Mediterranean.
In the
eighteenth century the Fair had thus taken over the city's
commercial activities (there were 14 foreign consulates to protect
the interests of the merchants) that a first expansion of the city
had to be made, demolishing the section of the walls that lined the
right bank of the Misa river, to create the first arcades, dedicated
to Cardinal Luigi Ercolani who followed the work.
This first
expansion, considered not sufficient, was also followed in the
eighteenth century by another one that saw the construction of the
last part of the historic center to reach the current conformation
up to the current barracks of the State Police, and from the arcades
along the river ( which were continued up to the bridge near the new
Cathedral of San Pietro Apostolo, begun in 1762) up to the current
Viale Leopardi. The project also intended the extension of the walls
on the left bank of the river and the construction of new city
blocks and the new portico along the entire left bank of the Misa,
but given the excessive cost of all these interventions, it was
decided to resizing. On one of the ramparts to the south, enlarged
by the extension works, the city theater "La Fenice" was built, with
the same name as the most famous Venetian theater.
It should be noted as a simple note that at first the hypothesis of enlarging the city by "stretching it" towards Ancona was taken into consideration but the idea was discarded: it will still have an implementation with the city expansion following the 1930 earthquake.
The years between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the
Napoleonic domination in Italy and the subsequent restoration of
papal power, but also saw the birth of the scion of the noble local
family Mastai Ferretti, the young Giovanni Maria who went down in
history as Pope Pius IX, Blessed from 3 September 2000, and
last pope king of the Papal State. Rising to the papal throne in
1846, his pontificate lasted a good 32 years and was the longest in
history after the one traditionally recognized as the apostle Peter.
Precisely in the years between the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries the crisis of the "Free Fair" began, caused by multiple
factors: the ever greater movement of the main trades in the
Atlantic, with a consequent significant decline in trade (the
economic continental block established by Napoleon to economically
"defeat" the British Empire), the passage of epidemics and the
continuous progressive burial of the river bed.
To realize
how much the latter had an impact, just think that at the time the
pier was close to the current Foro Annonario, which was built in
those years, that is, about 500 meters from the tip of the current
pier.
The importance of the fair for Senigallia and for the
people of Senigallia is demonstrated by the theatrical season of
that time, which was made to coincide with the fair period to
promote and "encourage" it. In fact, the season of the "La Fenice"
theater was very well known and many illustrious artists presented
equally well-known works.
With the unification of Italy
Senigallia (together with Monterado, Castel Colonna and Ripe) was
not returned to the newly formed Province of Pesaro and Urbino (like
almost all of the Apostolic Delegation of Urbino and Pesaro to which
it belonged) but in the Province of Ancona. But for Senigallia,
national unity also entailed the definitive loss of the Fiera Franca
(officially in 1869, but as already said in decline for many years),
supplanted by tourism as the main economic activity: Senigallia was
among the first cities to promote itself nationally and
international as a place of leisure and rest, taking advantage of
the beach that a few years later will be nicknamed velvet beach and
which is still its tourist symbol. The view from the shore is
particular: unlike other Adriatic towns, with a straight coastline,
from Senigallia the view is made up of the Gulf of Ancona.
In
1853 the first bathing establishment was built which, in fact, gave
rise to the tourist history of the city of Senigallia, which was
associated with the theatrical season.
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Senigallia
therefore already had an important tourist value that increased in
the following years: a symbol of this phenomenon (in addition to the
activity of the "La Fenice" theater, equipped with a stage similar
in size to that of La Scala ) were the Bagni Establishment (now an
abandoned building) and the Rotonda a Mare, once on stilts placed in
front of the Bagni Establishment for its own use and rebuilt in its
current position in reinforced concrete in 1933 after the 1930
earthquake.
The confirmation of the important role that the
city had assumed in the tourism field, in 1928 Senigallia together
with Cortina d'Ampezzo was recognized as the seat of the first
autonomous company of stay and care in Italy.
Meanwhile the
city continued to develop urbanistically with the first popular
neighborhoods outside the walls and, a sign of times of peace, it
was decided to bury the old outer moat that still existed all around
the city and also the canal called Penna, located there where Viale
IV Novembre now passes and which until then had served to regulate
the flow of floods that flooded the city: these had considerably
reduced in number with the enlargement and embankment of the river
as we see it today, which took place over the years '10 and '20 of
the twentieth century.
It was in this situation that Senigallia was hit by a very strong
earthquake on 30 October 1930, the damage of which was considerable
in particular for the city: the theater suffered serious damage, the
old episcopal seminary had to be demolished and moved out of the
city, a convent of nuns of cloister (where historically the famous
massacre of Duke Valentino took place) was completely demolished to
make way for the current G. Pascoli elementary school, Porta Saffi
(located at the beginning of Corso II Giugno) was demolished,
visually opening the Corso to the rest of the city out of the walls.
In general, the whole city suffered such damage that it was
necessary to reduce the height of almost all the buildings in the
current historic center and to drastically change its morphology.
The seismic event had as a further consequence the opening of
the city to the outside, with the urbanization of the area south of
the historic walls up to the new church of the Portone "Santa Maria
della Neve", the construction of the popular neighborhoods along the
road state 16 Adriatica and the current IACP and in general the
construction of further villas in the area facing the sea, in the
Art Nouveau style that was popular in those years.
The
opening of the city to the outside made even clearer the tourist
vogue that the city was taking, and nevertheless it maintained a
port area dedicated to fishing, together with the cement factory.
The war events of the first and second world wars fortunately
left few signs in the city: the bullet holes found in the Foro
Annonario, the demolition and reconstruction of the main city
bridges.
Subsequently the city went through a strong period
of growth and tourism was again the signal of recovery: it was to
facilitate and encourage the tourist function that it adopted a
Regulatory Plan, one of the first cities in the Marche region, which
among other things established the proximity of the highway to the
city (to allow crossers a view of the sea, it was said). Throughout
the fifties and sixties, Senigallia still rivaled Rimini as the main
national seaside resort, which was associated with the motor and
show season.
The city meanwhile continued its expansion north
and south, following the coast line, and towards the hinterland
until it passed the highway line.
The last few years have seen "urbanistically historical" events for the city: the enlargement of the tourist port towards the sea and its definitive separation from the riverbed which, since the foundation of the city, had been its "port" and the demolition of the immense complex of buildings that made up the now former Italcementi cement factory, also in the area of the city port.
«The city of Sinigaglia differs from this root of
the mountains a little more than the shooting of a bow, and from the
marina it is less than a mile away. Beside this runs a small river,
which bathes that part of the walls that concern towards Fano. The
road reaches Sinigaglia for so long that it takes a good distance to
walk along the mountains, and when you reach the river that passes
along Sinigaglia, you turn your left hand up along the bank of it;
so much so that, having gone through the space of an archway, he
arrives at a bridge which crosses that river and almost attests with
the door that enters Sinigaglia, not by straight line but
transversally. Ahead of the door is a hamlet of houses with a
square, in front of which the bank of the river faces on one side. "
(Niccolò Machiavelli, Description of Duke Valentino's way of killing
Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Signor Pagolo and the Duke
of Gravina Orsini)
It rises on the mid-Adriatic coast at the
mouth of the Misa river about 35 km from Ancona, heading south, and
about 30 km from Pesaro, heading north.
Its territory is
mainly flat, but surrounded by hills sloping down to the sea. The
historic center follows the urban layout of the Roman city which was
founded on a hill south of the Misa river.
The climate is sublitorial or less frequently Mediterranean. In winter the climate is cold and humid (average January 4.6 ° C), in summer it is hot and muggy (average August 24.1). The average rainfall is around 797 mm in the spring and autumn, but more likely in January and February. Snowfall events are either absent or usually shrink to 3-5 days a year and the snowpack thicknesses on the ground usually within 20 cm.