A walk in Fano

We parked our car close to the hospital of Fano, at a free car park named Parcheggio ex Foro Boario. We had been tipped about this car park by a friend who had previously visited Fano, and especially the aforementioned hospital. For reasons that are quite understandable she did not speak about the hospital in flattering terms, but she was full of praise for Fano itself. After having strolled through the town for a day ourselves and having visited most of the churches, museums and other attractions, we reached the same verdict: Fano is absolutely worth a visit, both for those who are looking for beautiful beaches and for those who are interested in Roman history.

When visiting a town for the first time, it is always wise to hop in at the local tourist office. The one in Fano is on the edge of the central square, the Piazza XX Settembre, so this became our first stop. On the square there is a fountain with a statue of the Roman goddess Fortuna. The statue is a reminder of the time when Fano was still a Roman settlement called Fanum Fortunae (“sanctuary of Fortuna”). The statue – or rather: the original statue – is a work by Donnino Ambrosi. The original work has been moved to the Museo Civico, where visitors may find it in the anything-but-prestigious stairwell. The fountain is nowadays topped by a copy. Another building on the square is the former Palazzo della Ragione, which dates from 1299 but is currently in use as a theatre, the Teatro della Fortuna. The theatre was designed by the architect Luigi Poletti (1792-1869). In three niches on the façade of the building we find statues of three saints. The most important of these saints is the man in the middle: Saint Paternianus (died 360), who according to tradition was the first bishop of Fano. His statue dates from the fourteenth century. The other two statues were made in the sixteenth century and represent Saint Fortunatus of Todi (died 565) and Saint Eusebius of Vercelli (ca. 283-371).

On the edge of the Piazza XX Settembre enthusiasts may find a small church or chiesetta. This San Silvestro Papa or Madonna di Piazza is originally from the thirteenth century. The church is dedicated to Pope Sylvester I, who sat on the throne of Saint Peter between 314 and 335, and who was an eye-witness to most of the reign of the emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor. According to a tradition that is hilariously inaccurate, this Sylvester was even the man who baptised Constantine. I initially assumed that the church was dedicated to Pope Sylvester II (999-1003), the pope who gifted Fano to the German emperor Otto III. However, this second Sylvester is not a saint. San Silvestro Papa is one of the oldest churches of Fano. The Roman columns in the interior are spolia, reused materials from Antiquity. The murals about the Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross) are, on the other hand, modern. They were made after World War Two by Augusto Ranocchi (1931-2011). And then there is the façade, of which the lower register was designed and built by Filippo Terzi (1520-1597), an architect who would later work in Portugal. This register dates from 1565, the upper register from 1606.

It was now time to leave the central square and visit the former church of San Francesco. This church, dedicated in 1336, lost its roof in 1930 and is no longer used for religious services. It has found a new purpose as a venue for open air concerts during the summer, when the risk of rain is at its lowest. The church itself is inaccessible to the public and there is actually nothing to see inside, but we had come for the funerary monuments in the portico, the so-called Tombe Malatestiane. On the right we see the tomb of Pandolfo III Malatesta (1370-1427), condottiero and Lord of Fano between 1385 and his death. Pandolfo’s monument was designed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) and dates from 1460. But no matter how famous Alberti is, the monument is rather dull. Much more interesting is the tomb of Pandolfo’s first wife – and cousin – Paola Bianca Malatesta (ca. 1366-1398). Her monument was completed in 1413 and is usually attributed to the Venetian sculptor Filippo di Domenico. Above the effigy of the deceased, we see a scene of the Crucifixion with Saint Louis of Toulouse, the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Franciscus of Assisi, while on the corners there are smaller statues of the archangel Gabriel and – again – the Virgin. The sarcophagus has been decorated with the images of five more saints. The third funerary monument in the loggia is that of Bonetto da Castelfranco. He was the personal physician of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Fano between 1432 and 1468.

After having admired the funerary monuments, it was a five-minute walk to the next church, one that still has its roof: Santa Maria Nuova. This is a medieval church that was originally called San Salvatore. In 1518 it was granted to a group of Observant Franciscans, who rebuilt the church and consecrated it in 1557. A remarkable fact is that the Franciscans took the portal from their previous church with them and added it to their new church. This portal is a work by Bernardino di Pietro da Carona and dates from 1498. The brothers also moved several artworks from their previous abode to the Santa Maria Nuova, which they used to decorate the altars in their new church. On the left side we find a Visitation by Giovanni Santi (ca. 1435-1494) and an Annunciation by Perugino (ca. 1446-1523).

Giovanni Santi from Urbino was himself a fairly mediocre painter, but he also happened to be the father of the brilliant Raphael (1483-1520). The latter became a student of the famous Perugino (Pietro Vannucci) and is said to have assisted him in painting his Pala di Fano, a work that we find on the right side. In this panel painting the Madonna and Child are flanked by, on the left, Saint John the Baptist and the Franciscan saints Louis of Toulouse and Franciscus of Assisi, and, on the right, Saints Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene. Raphael purportedly contributed to the predella, which features scenes from the life of the Virgin. When we visited the Santa Maria Nuova, the Pala di Fano had unfortunately been moved to the civic museum for an exhibition about Perugino. We had to content ourselves with a copy and the comforting thought that we would still get a chance to see the original work during our visit to the Museo Civico later that day. However, things would take a slightly different turn.

It was now time to become more acquainted with the Roman past of Fano. We therefore walked over to the Arco d’Augusto, an arch that was built in the year 2 BCE on the spot where the famous Roman road called the Via Flaminia reached the town. As was already mentioned above, Fano’s original name was Fanum Fortunae. The town may have been founded after the Roman victory over the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal in the battle of the Metaurus river in 207 BCE. The emperor Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE) gave the settlement the status of a Roman colony that he called Colonia Julia Fanestris. He also gifted the town its walls, and the arch that was named Arco d’Augusto after him. Of the arch only the bottom part survives. The upper part – a gallery – was lost during a conflict between Pope Pius II (1458-1464) and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. The pope’s army besieged Fano and bombarded it with cannon fire. A cannonball hit the Arco d’Augusto and damaged its gallery beyond repair. You can read more about Roman Fano in a separate post.

I will also dedicate a separate post to the Duomo of Fano. This cathedral is not – as one might have expected – dedicated to Saint Paternianus, but to the Virgin Mary (Santa Maria Assunta). The Duomo dates from about 1140, but has often and even quite recently been renovated. The façade for instance dates from 1925 and the bell-tower is a post-war construction. Artistic highlights of the building are a Romanesque portal with Cosmatesque decorations and a Romanesque pulpit with scenes from the lives of Mary and Jesus. An intriguing object is the funerary monument of bishop Vincenzo del Signore (1881-1967), into which a relief from the twelfth century has been incorporated. Truly splendid is, lastly, the Baroque Cappella Nolfi, which was leased by a local noble family. Most frescoes in the chapel are by Domenichino (1581-1641), the altarpiece was painted by Andrea Lilli, and the busts of the brothers Cesare and Guido Nolfi were made by Francesco Caporale.

Our next destination was the Museo Civico, which is housed in the Palazzo Malatestiano. On the ground floor we find the archaeological museum, which recounts the story of Roman Fano. The small museum possesses mostly sculptures and also has a nice mosaic of Neptune in his chariot. On the next floor, the Pinacoteca offers us paintings by the aforementioned Giovanni Santi and Domenichino, but also by Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri (1589-1657), Mattia Preti (1613-1699) and Guercino (1591-1666). I personally thought the most beautiful work was a fifteenth-century polyptych by the Venetian painter Michele Giambono, while the town of Fano is represented by the local painters Bartolomeo and Pompeo Morganti, a father and son. In a separate post you can read more about the works. And what about Perugino’s Pala di Fano? Regretfully, we did not get to see it. Although the exhibition Pietro Perugino a Fano. “Primus pictor in orbe” was so successful that it had been extended, it could only be visited in the evening. This was nice for Italians who wanted to do an art tour after their dinner, but simply not an option for two tourists who still had a long drive back to their agriturismo ahead of them.

It was now time for lunch, but first we decided to pass by the Rocca Malatestiana, the former citadel of Fano. The Rocca was built in the fifteenth century for the Malatesta family. It was heavily damaged during World War Two, but thoroughly restored in the post-war period. Nowadays the Rocca Malatestiana is used for open air events, but if there are none of these there is not much to see or do. Our visit was therefore quite brief, and we quickly crossed the railway and strolled along the Viale Colombo towards the beach. Here there are many good restaurants that obviously specialise in seafood. Our travel guide recommended Trattoria La Quinta, but that restaurant turned out to be closed due to vacation. We therefore decided to try the place next door, La Rustita. It was still very quiet there, but the many notes on the tables with reservations for “Pietro x 4” and “Alessandra x 6” betrayed that La Rustita is a popular restaurant. Fortunately, it still had a table for us, and we enjoyed a fine lunch. There is no à la carte menu, the guests eat what the staff serves that day.

Fano has a truly magnificent beach. We would certainly have rented a sunbed if we had thought about bringing along swimming gear. But since we had not, we went for a walk along the pier. At the end of it we find a replica of a statue that is known as the Athlete of Fano, the Victorious Youth or the Lysippos of Fano. The bronze statue, attributed to the Greek sculptor Lysippos (fourth century BCE) or – ever more often – a follower, was hauled from the bottom of the Adriatic Sea by Italian fishermen in 1964. They sold it on the black market, after which it ended up in the hands of the German art dealer Herman Heinz, who in 1977 sold it to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The statue is still there, as the museum has persistently rejected the Italian claim to the Athlete of Fano.

We ended our tour of Fano with a visit to two churches. The first was the octagonal church of Sant’Antonio Abate, of which the history goes back to the thirteenth century, but which was completely rebuilt in 1749. The exterior of the building is largely the result of a renovation in 1922. It all looks a bit fake, but then again, we are looking at painted concrete rather than marble. The church is currently used by an Orthodox community, which explains the presence of an iconostasis. The artworks in the Sant’Antonio Abate are not very special, but a fifteenth-century statue of bishop Orso (seventh century) above the main entrance is not bad at all.

Our expectations were significantly higher for the church dedicated to the patron saint of Fano, San Paterniano. Unfortunately, this church turned out to be closed, so we had to confine ourselves to studying its rather unimpressive façade. The original church dedicated to Saint Paternianus arose along the Via Flaminia and was built before the year 1000. In 1547 the construction of a new church was launched, which was consecrated in 1558. The architect involved was supposedly Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570), although there is no documentary evidence for this claim. Inside the church we find, among other things, works by the aforementioned local painter Bartolomeo Morganti, as well as by Claudio Ridolfi (ca. 1570-1644) and Giuseppe Cesari (1568-1640), also known as the Cavalier d’Arpino. Next to the church is a convent, which has been used by Capuchins since 1922.

Source: Bradt travel guide Umbria & the Marche (2021), p. 281-283.