05 - Porta Rimini

“On a hill just outside the city is the Villa Imperiale…we set out one afternoon to see the wonders of the Imperiale. We left the city through an imposing gate in the walls with which Genga had surrounded the city and crossed the stream that gives rise to the port of Pesaro. At the gate a customs officer made us take the wrong road and instead of turning right immediately we followed the road to Rimini and had to make a long detour along steep and muddy paths around Villa Vittoria, where the unfortunate Queen Caroline of England had resided. From these heights there were pleasant views towards the interior where the purple and violet wings of the Apennines rise, one after the other, beyond the plain.

Leaving the city, Thomas Jackson loses his Gothic tones and opens up to the admiration of nature, preparing for the visit that constitutes the reason for his passage to Pesaro: the Villa Imperiale.

The Porta Rimini area is steeped in history, but perhaps Jackson perceives it only as an exit from the town center.

In reality, it should be remembered that Piedmontese troops entered through Porta Rimini to liberate Pesaro from the papal government on September 11, 1860. Just outside the gate, in front of Villa Moscioni, which has remained almost identical, there is still a house today that has a tombstone and twelve cannonballs. Curiously, it was the doctors of the San Benedetto hospital who opened the gate to the Piedmontese troops.

The link to the values of the Risorgimento of the area around the gate is demonstrated by events organized later, such as the funeral ceremony for Mazzini.

The area also has its charm linked to the river and the port, but also to the Orti Giulii, built in honor of Giulio Perticari between 1827 and 1830, which represented one of the first examples of a public park in Italy. The gardens were also built in a context that had already seen in the past the presence of a garden of exceptional beauty, the Barchetto ducale, where Bernardo and Torquato Tasso were also hosted.

The entire area is already completely different when Jackson passes by there, but it is even more so today, congested by traffic and abandoned places.