The Municipality of Trecastelli was born on 1 January 2014 from the merger of the municipalities of Ripe, Castel Colonna and Monterado.
The City of Trecastelli is therefore now a new Municipality, with around eight thousand inhabitants, and benefits from the historical and cultural identity of the municipalities from which it draws its origins.
Situated just a few kilometres from the sea, the territory, which rises amidst the typical hills of Le Marche Region, offers numerous attractions in terms of culture, history and nature.
Cultural itineraries include a visit to the Nori De’ Nobili Museum in Ripe, which houses the artist’s entire collection of works, and the Centre for the Study of Women in Contemporary Visual Arts, which offers contemporary art exhibitions.
The Parish Church of San Pellegrino is very popular. It houses an eighteenth-century organ by Antonio Callido and the relics of Saint Pellegrino in the High Altar; the church also houses the relics of Saint John Paul II, Patron Saint of Trecastelli.
The tour of the area can be continued by walking around the city walls, a building in neo-romantic style, which now houses the headquarters of the new municipality.
The municipality of Castel Colonna (awarded the Green Flag Agriculture award) is a small town located on the borders of the Province of Pesaro-Urbino, close to the hills that divide the valleys of the Nevola and Cesano rivers.
The castle stands on a hill and can be entered through a single gate. Inside, the environment is characterised by small houses and vegetable gardens and stone-paved streets.
The locality has a great tradition in wine production and olive growing, which looks towards an organic world and has created typical products such as porchetta and a typical salami “Salame di Frattula”.
Monterado is a hilly centre, built in the Middle Ages in an area that was already populated in ancient times. It is characterised by a historic centre that is a natural balcony overlooking the Adriatic Sea and dominates the Cesano River Valley from an altitude of 161 metres above sea level.
For a nature walk among pines, centuries-old oaks and viburnums, a visit to the Monterado Castle with its beautiful gardens and fascinating forest is recommended.
The paintings exhibited in the rooms of the Museum show the artistic path of Nori De’ Nobili in his youthful years and early artistic maturity, where his stay in the Florentine environment significantly characterized his pictorial evolution.
The countless self-portraits, however, are evidence of the contrasted existence of the painter, a tireless dream traveller: a true story in images, in which Nori represents herself in ever-changing ways.
The Museum is also home to the artist’s historical archive, where around fourteen hundred works are preserved and is one of the exhibition spaces in the world dedicated to a female artist and, due to this characterizing peculiarity, it is also Centre for Studies on Women in the Contemporary Visual Arts.
The Study Center, in addition to hosting donations that important figures in the contemporary artistic field have made, aimed not only at the figure of Nori De’ Nobili but also at the female imagination in the visual arts, has the objective to deepen the contemporary artistic research of women, promoting intense cultural activity with important exhibitions of contemporary artists.
CASTELCOLONNA, which was once called “Tomba di Senigallia” (the term tomba indicated the hut in which the laborers lived in the Middle Ages), only later acquired the name dedicated to < strong>Vittoria Colonna, wife of Carlo Malatesta, lord of Pesaro and Fossombrone.
The Malatesta tower, located inside the castle, is the most important and representative monument: under the arch, on the right side, there is the marble plaque with the epigraph dedicated to Vittoria Colonna.
You can continue walking through the medieval historic center which retains its original appearance almost unchanged, perfectly preserved and punctuated by narrow streets, small squares and suggestive alleys. The ancient patrol walkway, still passable, and part of the surrounding walls, curiously arranged in the shape of a ship, are still intact.
Also very interesting is the visit to the Malatesta Caves, part of which were used to build the anti-aircraft shelter during the Second World War.
