A splendid old town

Jesi is one of the places I visited last summer during my stay in the Marche that pleased me most. A lovely town in the province of Ancona, with about forty thousand inhabitants, it presents a very pleasant old town still largely enclosed by walls and ramparts, entered, preferably, through the so-called Arco Clementino, which the people of Jesi had built in 1700 in honour of Pope Clement XII in gratitude for having had the road linking the town to the Adriatic improved and for abolishing the duty on the grain trade.

A beautiful town with an ancient past traced back to the Umbrians, then the Etruscans, then a Roman Castrum and later Municipium under the name of Aesis. In the 1100s it became a free commune with its own administrative autonomy; in the 1400s it was the lordship of Francesco Sforza who, at the middle of the century, ceded it to the Church, so remaining within the territories of the Papal State until the Risorgimento battle at nearby Castelfidardo (1860), after which it entered the Kingdom of Italy. Frederick II of Swabia and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi are among the celebrated natives of Jesi.

We arrived in Jesi coming from Cingoli, where we were staying — a short journey of about twenty kilometres that nevertheless takes some forty minutes by car because of the very winding roads — and at first I had thought of parking the car right near the Arco Clementino and continuing on foot, then I decided to try my luck and so went in by car, finding a convenient parking spot in front of Palazzo Pianetti (which houses the Civic Art Gallery) in a side street parallel to the main one.

Apart from the main axis running through the old town, from the Arco Clementino to Piazza del Duomo, I noticed that the traffic is fairly easy despite the narrow streets. The car parks are all paid and use the very awkward scratch-and-park system that forces you to go and find somewhere to buy the tickets, but I noticed that in the streets parallel to the central one there are quite a few and not all were in use, despite the Ferragosto period.

We began our visit right at Palazzo Pianetti, which was one of our planned stops, because we wanted to see the paintings by Lorenzo Lotto on display in this gallery. The building housing the collection is certainly one of the finest examples of eighteenth-century architecture and above all the Gallery of Stuccoes (or Rococo Gallery) is truly a spectacle that alone is worth the entrance ticket (5.50 euros). The works on display are interesting, especially the five by Lorenzo Lotto and also the modern collection with works by Guttuso, Sassu, Mattioli, Brindisi, Cassinari, etc.

From the gallery we moved a few dozen metres and began the real visit of Jesi's old town, starting from the fifteenth-century Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie and the thirteenth-century Church of San Nicolò (its Gothic portal is very beautiful) almost opposite, to move on to the characteristic Church of San Giovanni Battista (whose origins go back before the year 1000) before arriving in Piazza Repubblica, overlooked by the late-eighteenth-century Teatro Pergolesi, and immediately after the sixteenth-century Palazzo Ricci, distinctive for its façade of stones cut in the shape of diamonds.

Continuing towards the Duomo you come across numerous historic buildings of particular visual impact as façades but not open to visitors, such as the fifteenth-century Palazzo Colocci (partly owned by the municipality and home to the Colocci Museum and the Colocci-Vespucci Archive) and immediately after the fifteenth-century Palazzo della Signoria with a fine inner arcaded courtyard and an overlying loggia (glimpsed through the railings, also closed), after which you reach the striking Piazza Federico II.

A very scenic square overlooked by Palazzo Ripanti, in late Gothic style, the former Church of San Floriano (now housing the Archaeological Museum and the Studio Theatre), the eighteenth-century Palazzo Baleari and the eighteenth-century Cathedral (built that century on the site of an earlier religious building) with a very sober interior, but adorned with numerous frescoes and fine stucco decoration, and with particularly artistic side chapels.

What strikes you about Jesi's old town — and I'm referring above all to the buildings along the road axis from the Arco Clementino to the Duomo — is the pleasant harmony of the buildings there. There are medieval, Renaissance and also recently built, restored or renovated buildings, but they blend together in a very pleasant overall view. The only building that departs from these standards is the Palazzo della Banca Popolare di Ancona (if I remember rightly) which, in my view, only a planning committee in the throes of alcoholic fumes could have approved. A real shame.

We stopped for lunch at the Osteria Gattomatto, a nice place in the centre, a few steps from Piazza Repubblica and the Teatro Pergolesi. We chose the seafood starter (octopus with potatoes, skate with peppers and cuttlefish with celery), then Paccheri with scampi as a first course, skipped the second, and finished with pineapple sorbet, two coffees, water and a bottle of Verdicchio, for a bill of 55.00 euros which I'd judge reasonable.

We got back in the car for a drive around the walls of the old town, from which some rather imposing towers still rise, such as the Torrione di Mezzogiorno in Piazza Pontelli and the Torrione del Mortirozzo. Just outside the walls, the thirteenth-century Church of San Marco is worth a stop, very beautiful, with a brick façade and a fine three-nave interior with a very well decorated and frescoed cross-vaulted ceiling.

I was very pleased with my visit to this town; were it not for the Banca Popolare building, I wouldn't have hesitated to call Jesi's old town among the most beautiful of all those I've had occasion to visit so far, and so recommending a visit is a must. From the Adriatic motorway it's very easy to get there by car, leaving at Ancona Nord and continuing on the Ancona-Rome dual carriageway. The rail service is also very good, since Jesi lies on the Rome-Ancona railway line.