There is an area of the city of Pesaro where, "from a cannon shot distance", which in this case means in the space crossed by a cannonball, it is possible to collect traces that tell how Pesaro has changed after the second half of the '800. The area of the city that stretches from Rocca Costanza to Monte Ardizio turns its back on the historic center and has no buildings and churches of great artistic value, but shows the development of modernity, as it was then conceived. Pesaro changed profoundly when it decided to tear down the ancient walls and destroy the gates, thinking of an urban, demographic and economic development that still continues to grow even today in that direction. Pesaro stopped being the small city closed between the walls and the sea and conquered the countryside.

From the riots of the Risorgimento to the construction of the houses of the first industrial bourgeoisie, from the monuments of the "fascio" to the wells of the Roman aqueduct, Roberto Vecchiarelli has identified curiosities and important traces, collected documents, photos and drawings that tell a path that can be enclosed in "a un tiro di schioppo”- an expression that in the local jargon serves to indicate a not too wide distance, the one covered by a bullet fired from a small rifle “schioppo”- but a walk full of stories that reconnect places that today seem fragmented.

We recommend following the steps on almaloci.com because in this walkscape the documents published are numerous, interesting and curious.

Concept: Roberto Vecchiarelli

Walkscape: Antonella Micaletti

Coordination / Digital: Settimio Perlini

You can follow the walkscape with the Podcast version - in italian from this link.

Around the town you can find still important signs of change - sometimes they are imperceptible traces not only in art and history, but also in everyday life. For this reason the territory is like a palimpsest.

These tracks are only apparently unconnected and they build up fragments of an history that spans the ages and the facts, that ties the story to other disciplines (botany, science, literature, architecture) allowing the observation and the imagination to track the thread that combines them.

Walk, look, pick up are some of the actions you can start to reread the territory, to find references and connections. 

THIS WALKSCAPE IS NOT AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE - PLEASE CHECK THE ITALIAN VERSION.

The major way, seven alleys and three squares

This podcast accompanies you to discover Fermignano when it was only a castle, before its modern conformation.

Fermignano is a small town of roman origins. The count Guido Antonio Montefeltro, initiator of the Urbinate lordship, made “the castle” of Fermignano build next to the bridge over the Metauro river, at the end of the 14^th century. 

Around the 15^th century, the castle – together with the major way, seven alleys and three squares – took shape.

The town was equipped with walls on which two doors opened: one next to the bridge over the Metauro river and next to the tower called “porta Romana” which was demolished in 1870, the other one beside the church of San Pietro and on the top of the major way that leaving the castle, leads to Urbino and that was demolished at the end of the 19^th century.

The bond with Urbino was very profound because the town of Fermignano, has always been connected to Urbino from its origins and only in 1818 the first town Council of Fermignano was established. In the same year the council of the castle of Fermignano and of the surroundings villas, met on the top floor of the tower and started a new phase for the small town. 

The town developed around the Metauro river which almost surrounds it and that has set the pace of many important transformations of its social and economic life.

The walkscape goes through the major way, the seven alleys and the three squares that have created Fermignano, telling about the transformations that occurred during the passing of time and that are already visible nowadays. So the places of the walkscapes are even more outside the castle; the first stages of the walking are the last ones in order of appearance in the story of the town, but as we usually do in the walkscapes, we read the current structure to know and interpret the past.

Walkscape Promoted by Assessorato alla Cultura - Comune di Fermignano 

Curated by Etra.entra nella arte

Project: Antonella micaletti

Walkscape: Emanuela Ivaldi

Digital: Settimio Perlini

Historical Sources: Giulio Finocchi / Biblioteca Oliveriana 

Durata: 2 ore

The oldest settlements and the evolution of the territory of Fermignano outside and around the castle. The path shall be followed by car.

Historical sources:   Giulio Finocchi, Biblioteca Oliveriana

Walkscape:  Manuela Ivaldi

Concept: Roberto Vecchiarelli, Antonella Micaletti

Conduction: Manuela Ivaldi

Digital: Settimio Perlini

Voice: Elisabetta Marsigli

Fondi documentari Biblioteca e Musei Oliveriani

Pictures: Archivio contessa Eugenia Carotti Rigi Luperti, Sandro Pesaresi, Settimio Perlini

Bibliography: 

Rafaella Michelangelo, I Bonaventura. Una famiglia del patriziato urbinate, Grafiche Stibu, Urbania 1999

AA,VV, a cura di Mario Luni, Castrum fimignani, Castello del ducato di Urbino, Banca Popolare 1993

There are different ways of looking at a territory, and certainly the imagination is essential for everyone; also for the geographer, the naturalist, the historian, the surveyor, the poet, the anthropologist or the artist.

The Park of the Muses and Nymphs is a project of reading the territory, a filter through which to look at the landscape, trying to combine different looks by binding them tightly with the thread of imagination and poetry. Not only with the imagination, but starting from the traces left by the many characters and the many events of the lands of Vallefòglia, which create continuous references between one place and another.

Due to the transformation of the territory, today we are unable to read the ancient harmony, but it is traceable in numerous themes that allow new paths every time, even through the same places.

The center of gravity of the Park shifts attention from the two main centers of Pesaro and Urbino to the Vallefoglia area and expands towards the two ends of the province ...

The dominant theme that makes it possible to resonate the entire valley of its ancient unity is that of the Muses and Nymphs. We find them in Pesaro, in Sant’Angelo in Lizzóla, in Urbino. They are muhse or nymphs depending on the cultural context. But looking at Vallefòglia with their eyes it is possible to tell of lands where the activities of human wisdom, art, poetry and nature have found a balance still perceptible today, even in places devastated by war or transformed by progress.

We therefore trace them in art and poetry but equally in nature: landscape and water have therefore been identified as additional themes in which the Nymphs and Muses live and manifest themselves, allowing a comparison with those who have observed the landscape and "Portrait" in the past: Mingucci and Liverani.

They are dominant themes throughout the territory but they also to leave room for many others.

Like the ribbon of the muse Clio, the "Muse of History" of Giovanni Santi, we follow the movement of the Foglia river and the traces of the water (in which the Nymphs live), to understand how the history of the Foglia valley changes its course and its landscape, but drag immortal cultural references with it.

In the pictures of the starting page of the walkscape, on the right you will find the Muse Clio, the muse of history, painted by Giovanni Santi between the year one thousand four hundred eighty-five and ninety, stands in front of a rock; it is related to nature.

In the version later placed in the Tempietto delle Muse in the Ducal Palace of Urbino (and today at Palazzo Corsini in Florence) it has lost the fluttering ribbon, present instead in the design version. Still in the images on the starting page of the walkscape on the left you will find the pen version which is now in London, in the Royal Collection.

We imagined that the movement of the Musa ribbon was like that of the river that crosses the Foglia valley and combines culture and nature, history and legends ..

How to visit the park

The park is built through numbered and georeferenced stages, even if it is not necessary to follow the proposed order, so that no one gets lost. In reality, the best way to get to know a territory is to get lost.

To find the right mediation we propose you to follow itineraries following your interests, your intuition, your curiosity. You can find them on the home page on almalòci.com

But it is more interesting that these and other routes are redesigned by each traveler within the Park of the Muses and Nymphs, discovering new references and references with our texts and commented images everywhere.

The Raffaello to Genga tour, starts from the Renaissance city of Urbino, going through the Cesane woods and crosses the countryside of Montefeltro, includes stops and visits along the way.

The whole tour fits perfectly to the celebrations of the 500 years of Raffaello Sanzio. In fact the two painters (Raffaello and Genga) are linked not only from an artistic point of view but also from their own families: the grandparents of Genga (Piero di Andrea da Genga) and Raphael (Sante di Peruzzolo da Colbordolo), came from these places . Both the grandparents of the Painters together with the populations of these hills for various vicissitudes found refuge in nearby cities. Furthermore Giovanni Santi (father of Raphael) was originally from Colbordolo, while the Genga family owned a estate in these lands and Genga himself came here to spend the last years of his life.

The Tour will therefore also be a way to recall the stories of the people of the Valle del Foglia, who over the years have had to move from the countryside and the Castles to survive landslides, hydrogeological instability, battles, changed economic conditions also due to the Papal domination of the our region before the unification of Italy. It will be a unique opportunity to rediscover the close historical, artistic and gastronomic links between  Urbino

Ducale and the Valle del Foglia, going through wonderful and well preserved villages and castles.

The Furlo means “a lot of possible experiences together”: history, nature, legends and art, they intersect each other while walking, while observing, listening and living.

We are working on it!