SENIGALLIA

The name is a reminder of the ancient origin of the town, which according to tradition was founded by a mythical “Brennus”, a condottiere of the Gauls. Senigallia was the first Roman colony on the Adriatic, and has been through moments of great fortune and extreme decadence. Its definite rebirth can be dated to the middle of the 15th century, when Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta fortified it and repopulated the area around it.After his defeat by Federico da Montefeltro, the town was given as a vicariate to Antonio Piccolomini by Pope Pius II and later granted alternately by Sixtus IV to his nephew, Giovanni Della Rovere, who was destined to marry Giovanna, the daughter of Federico da Montefeltro to whom the pope had awarded the title of Duke in that same year.
Giovanni was also appointed Prefect of Rome the following year, and inherited the Dukedom of Sora from his cousin Leonardo.The twenty-seven years of Della Rovere rule (Giovanni died on 6th November 1501) marked a strange period in the history of Senigallia: the only one in which the town was the capital of a State which the “new prince” created in its fundamental structures, endowing it with Statutes and Land Registries and revising the arrangement of the town, not only with more functional town-walls and with a stronger fort – the cornerstone of sea-defence, but also with works to reclaim the marshy areas of the Salines, embank­ments for the Misa river, with parks and “paving all the streets with bricks”.

Giovanni had Federico da Monte­feltro’s archi­­tects at his disposal: Gentile Veterani designed the rivellino; Luciano Laurana built the structure for the central part of the Fort, in which he made apartments that could house the court in case of emergency and he also built the link to the square in front; Baccio Pontelli made the four massive towers which incorporate the residential part.