San Filippo.
We parked our car in the Viale della Repubblica and continued on foot to the historical centre of Fossombrone. During the Middle Ages the town was part of the Papal States. The Pope in Rome had appointed members of the Malatesta family from Rimini as rulers, but in 1445 Galeazzo Malatesta, nicknamed “the Inept”, sold Fossombrone to the famous Federico da Montefeltro (1422-1482), lord and later duke of Urbino. Pope Eugenius IV (1431-1447) was furious about the sale, for which he had not given his permission. Galeazzo Malatesta was excommunicated, but Federico kept control of Fossombrone. His son Guidobaldo died in 1508, aged just 36 and without having produced any offspring. He was succeeded by Francesco Maria della Rovere, the son of his sister and therefore his nephew.
The first church we visited in Fossombrone has a history that is closely linked to that of the Della Rovere family. This church is that of San Filippo. It was built between 1608 and 1613 to celebrate the birth of Federico Ubaldo della Rovere (1605-1623). He was the long-awaited and much hoped-for male descendant of Francesco Maria II della Rovere (1549-1631). Regretfully Federico died young, causing Francesco Maria II to lose his heir and go down in history as the last duke of Urbino himself. Urbino, and Fossombrone with it, once again became part of the Papal States and remained part of the papal territories until 1860, when the former duchy was integrated into the Kingdom of Italy. The San Filippo has been deconsecrated and therefore no longer has an altar. The church building is nowadays used for concerts and other events. It is usually open to the public.
San Filippo, seen from the Pinacoteca.
Interior of the church.
The San Filippo was initially dedicated to five local martyrs, Saints Aquilino, Gemino, Gelasio, Magno and Donato. Soon, however, the building was granted to members of the Oratorian order, founded by Saint Filippo Neri (1515-1595), nicknamed the Apostle of Rome. Neri was a Florentine by birth. He had arrived as a pilgrim in Rome in 1534 and was ordained as a priest in 1551 at age 36. The man was quite a phenomenon. He demanded of his followers that they humiliate themselves by dressing in rags and even wearing a foxtail between their legs. Many of his followers were young Roman nobleman and Neri ordered them to do manual labour, which was unheard of in that era. Filippo Neri was not afraid to be controversial (see Rome: Chiesa Nuova). He was beatified in 1615 and canonised in 1622. It must have been either one of these events that led to the church in Fossombrone being formally dedicated to him.
The church of San Filippo has very few external decorations. Those who study the plain brick façade with its bricked-up windows will be in for a shock when they see the exuberant Baroque interior of the building. The Oratorians commissioned the beautiful stucco decorations from Tommaso Amantini (1625-1675) from Urbania, of whom I had previously seen work in Pergola. The former church also possesses a great number of works by the local painter Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri (1589-1657). The colourful altarpiece in the apse from ca. 1621-1623, paid for by the municipality of Fossombrone, depicts how the five martyrs offer the church to the Madonna and Child in heaven. To the right of the Madonna we see Saint Filippo Neri, with a white beard and white chasuble. We spoke to a guide in the church, who told us that the identity of the other three saints is unknown. They are in any case two bishops and – I presume – a deacon.
Sant’Agostino.
Guerrieri’s altarpiece of Saint Michael the Archangel and the Holy Trinity dates from 1624. It can be found in one of the chapels on the right side. We see Christ holding the scales that are used to weigh the souls of the dead. Michael appears to be pleading for the soul of a deceased woman. Below her more souls are visible in the flames of Purgatory. The painter left his signature on the shield between Christ and God the Father. When I was in Pergola, I had already seen his signature on a sword in one of his paintings, and as the name “Guerrieri” means something along the lines of “warriors”, I assumed that the painter had a predilection for leaving his signature on weapons. However, the guide in the church told us she also knew of a Guerrieri painting where he had left the signature on a pillow (it was only later that I realised that pillows can be used as weapons in a pillow fight).
A third work in the church by Guerrieri is a painting of Saint Barnabas (1620-1624). The San Filippo moreover possesses works by Claudio Ridolfi (1570-1644) and Lazzaro Baldi (ca. 1624-1703). The abundance of artworks makes the San Filippo by far the most interesting church of Fossombrone. Bigger, but less impressive is its quasi neighbour in the Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi, the church of Sant’Agostino. This church dates from the fourteenth century, but it was enlarged and most of all heightened in the eighteenth century. The increase in height is clearly visible if one takes up position to the right of the church: basically an extra floor was added to the building. The Sant’Agostino does not have a lot of exterior decorations either. Its interior is plain and simple as well, the artistic highlight being the painting above the high altar, made by Federico Zuccari (1539-1609). His Nativity is very moving. The church also possesses a work by Guerrieri, a Madonna della Cintura (Madonna of the Belt) with Saint Augustine and his mother Monica.
About 250 metres further down the road we arrive at the Duomo of Fossombrone, also known as the co-cathedral of Santi Aldebrando, Agostino e Maurenzio. It is one of the seats of the diocese of Fano-Fossombrone-Cagli-Pergola, which was created in 1986. The cathedral initially served as the church of a Benedictine abbey. Only its fifteenth-century bell-tower is still original, the rest of the Duomo was completely rebuilt in neoclassicist style between 1776 and 1784. The architect involved was Cosimo Morelli (1732-1812). The Duomo has works by the aforementioned Guerrieri and Ridolfi, but unfortunately we did not find the building open even once. According to the guide we met in the San Filippo the cathedral does not have regular opening hours. As a consequence, people who wish to see the artworks have to try on a Sunday, right before or after mass.
Duomo of Fossombrone.
Duomo of Fossombrone, with in the background the church of Sant’Antonio Abate.
Next we crossed the river Metauro using the Ponte della Concordia, the Bridge of Unity. My travel guide claims that the original bridge dates from the year 292[1], and several sources on the Internet associate it with the Roman emperor Diocletianus (284-305), but it is in fact much more likely that the year 1292 is meant. The medieval bridge had five arches and was lost in a flood in 1765. In the 1780s a new bridge with a single arch was designed by the architect Luigi Baldelli. This bridge was blown up in 1944 by retreating German troops. The current Ponte della Concordia dates from 1946-1947. It gives access to the Borgo Sant’Antonio neighbourhood, where we find the church of Sant’Antonio Abate. The church was built in the fourteenth century, but entirely rebuilt in the nineteenth. Its exterior is charming, but you will not find any meaningful works of art inside.
Ponte della Concordia.
The Metauro.
Sant’Antonio Abate.
For works of art we need to go to the Pinacoteca Civica “A.Vernarecci”, which can be found in the high part of town (Corte Alta, the former ducal palace). The pinacoteca was named after Augusto Vernarecci (1847-1919), a canon, (art) historian and inspector of monuments. His personal collection served as a base for the museum, which opened its doors in 1901. The archaeological museum of Fossombrone (just a stone’s throw away from the pinacoteca) was also named after him. Rightly so, for it was Vernarecci who, at the end of the nineteenth century, started the excavations at Forum Sempronii, the Roman predecessor of Fossombrone, from which the name of the town is taken. I will dedicate a separate post to Forum Sempronii and the archaeological museum.
Of course the museum has various works by Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri, but interestingly the Pinacoteca Civica also possesses a number of paintings by his daughter Camilla Guerrieri (1628-after 1690). Other works are by the local painter Giuseppe Diamantini (1623-1705), by Pietro Ugolini from Pergola (ca. 1710-1780) and by Sebastiano Conca (1680-1764). Very impressive is an anonymous portrait from 1623 of the nobleman Gentiluccio III Rocchi. For me, however, the artistic highlights were two portraits painted by Francesco Podesti (1800-1895), a painter from Ancona. In 1824 he painted the portrait of Elisa Napoleona Baciocchi (1806-1869). She was a daughter of Elisa Bonaparte (1777-1820), Napoleon’s younger sister. Five years later Podesti also painted her son Carlo Felice Gianbattista Camerata-Passionei (1826-1853) with the family dog.
As the museum is a pinacoteca, it is obviously dominated by paintings. There are nevertheless two other factors that make the museum worth a visit. First of all, it possesses a sculpted relief of the Annunciation by Domenico Rosselli (ca. 1439-1498). The relief comes from the church of the Santissima Annunziata just outside Fossombrone. Of even greater importance is the splendid view of the town that the museum has to offer. All the churches that have been discussed in this post can be admired very well from the windows of the building.
Annunciation – Domenico Rosselli.
Note
[1] Bradt travel guide Umbria & the Marche (2021), p. 285.