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Ancona
Ancona stands on an elbow shaped promontory, protecting the widest natural port of the middle Adriatic sea. The name itself of the town reminds its geographical position: ankon in Greek means \'elbow\' and this is the way the Greek people called it and founded the town in 387 b.C. The epithet with which Ancona is known is the Doric town. Ancona is on the top of a cliff, it has a centre rich of history and monuments and well preserved semi-urban parks. The historical districts, climbed on various hills, overlook on the port arch as if they were around a stage. From its port every year about one million travellers leave mainly towards Greece and Croatia; it is in fact the first Adriatic port thanks to the number of embarkations and one of the first for goods and fishing.
History
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Ancona was founded from Syracuse about 390 BC, who gave it its name: Ancona is a very slightly modified transliteration of the Greek Αγκων, meaning "elbow"; the harbor to the east of the town was originally protected only by the promontory on the north, shaped like an elbow. Greek merchants established a Tyrian purple factory here (Sil. Ital. viii. 438). In Roman times it kept its own coinage with the punning device of the bent arm holding a palm branch, and the head of Aphrodite on the reverse, and continued the use of the Greek language.
When it became a Roman colony is doubtful. It was occupied as a naval station in the Illyrian War of 178 BC (Livy xli. i). Julius Caesar took possession of it immediately after crossing the Rubicon. Its harbour was of considerable importance in imperial times, as the nearest to Dalmatia, and was enlarged by Trajan, who constructed the north quay, his architect being Apollodorus of Damascus. At the beginning of it stands the marble triumphal arch with a single archway, and without bas-reliefs, erected in his honour in 115 by the senate and people.
After the fall of the Roman empire, Ancona was successively attacked by the Goths, Lombards and Saracens, but recovered its strength and importance. It was one of the cities of the Pentapolis under the exarchate of Ravenna and eventually became an important "Marine Republic". In 1532 it lost its freedom and became of the "Stato della Chiesa", under Pope Clement VII.
Pope Clement XII prolonged the quay, and an inferior imitation of Trajan's arch was set up; he also erected a Lazaretto at the south end of the harbor, Luigi Vanvitelli being the architect-in-chief. The southern quay was built in 1880, and the harbour was protected by forts on the heights.
From 1797 onwards, when the French took it, it frequently appears in history as an important fortress, until Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière capitulated here on September 29, 1860, eleven days after his defeat at Castelfidardo.
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Main monuments
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S. Ciriaco (Cathedral) |
The Cathedral, entitled to St. Ciriaco, was consecrated in 1128 and completed in 1189. Some writers suppose that the original church was in the form of a Latin cross and belonged to the 8th century. An early restoration was completed in 1234. It is a fine Romanesque building in grey stone, built in the form of a Greek cross, with a dodecagonal dome over the center slightly altered by Margaritone d'Arezzo in 1270. The façade has a Gothic portal, ascribed to Giorgio da Como (1228), which was intended to have a lateral arch on each side.
The interior, which has a crypt under each transept, in the main preserves its original character. It has ten columns which are attributed to the temple of Venus, and there are good screens of the 12th century, and other sculptures. The church was carefully restored in the 1980s. |
S. Maria della Piazza |
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Arch of Trajan |
The marble Arch of Trajan, 18 m high, was erected in 114/115 as an entrance to the causeway atop the harbor wall in honor of the emperor who had made the harbor, is one of the finest Roman monuments in the Marche. Most of its original bronze enrichments have disappeared. It stands on a high podium approached by a wide flight of steps. The archway, only 3 m wide, is flanked by pairs of fluted Corinthian columns on pedestals. An attic bears inscriptions. The format is that of the Arch of Titus in Rome, but made taller, so that the bronze figures surmounting it, of Trajan, his wife Plotina and sister Marciana, would figure as a landmark for ships approaching Rome's greatest Adriatic port. |
Mole Vanvitelliana (Lazzaretto) |
The Lazzaretto (Laemocomium or "Mole Vanvitelliana"), planned by architect Luigi Vanvitelli in 1732 is a pentagonal building covering more than 20,000 m², built to protect the military defensive authorities from the risk of contagious diseases eventually reaching the town with the ships. Later it was used also as a military hospital or as barracks; it is currently used for cultural exhibits. |
Loggia dei mercanti |
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Museums
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National archaeological museum of Marche region |
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The museum was born in 1860 as a gabinetto archeologico of the regional Commissione dei Monumenti and becomes a national archaeological museum in 1906. In 1958 Giovanni Annibaldi patiently catalogues the findings and finishes the work in 1969, but the earthquake of 1972 obliges the museum to close which will then reopen only in 1988. In the years 1991, 1995 and 1996 the rooms of the Paleolithic and Neolithic are reopened, then the rooms of the first metals age and finally of the bronze age. Still to realize are the Roman and Medieval sections. With the opening of all the sections expected, the national archaeological museum of Marche region will offer a rich and complete historical panorama of its own region.
via Ferretti 6
phone: 071202602 – 0712075390 |
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History