MONTEFELTRO, A LAND OF ENCHANTMENT

An invisible line forms the confines of the Montefeltro, crossroads between Tuscany, Umbria and Romagna, an imaginary line that binds together an extraordinary landscape and a common history at the centre of which is man and which protects its beauty as if in a treasure chest.
This line dissolves in a thousand directions among nature, facts and the legends of the golden age of Italian civilisation. It darts through the gentle hills, the ancient roman roads and the rocky passes in which fortresses, castles and ducal palaces are perched, it spreads in the parallel valleys of the short rivers that feed stretches of wild woods and the parish churches and monasteries in their peaceful bliss. 
Montefeltro is a land of enchantment…

… Montefeltro is a land of enchantment.
Here, it is as if time is suspended between the past and present, and each destination that the surprising turns of these countless routes hide is both close and yet distant.
Here, destiny has chosen to be generous with her guests; a generosity known to each hamlet as it watches over and celebrates its patrimony of tradition, art and culture, and to each inhabitant, with deep roots tied to centuries of history conserved and cultivated in folklore, museums, handcrafts and in the gastronomic and wine-making arts.
Here the mysterious treasure of beauty and quiet unfolds.
 
 

URBINO, THE IDEAL CITY
“The entire Montefeltro area is a dominion in itself; it draws life from the Marches and Romagna and even its language reflects this duplicity. On one hand the sweet incipient note of the Marches, on the other the strong, clean-cut style of Romagna.  It is not just an exception, because the Montefeltro has its own truth, its own authenticity and, like the city of Urbino which represents it, it is much more than a historical recollection”. (Carlo Bo, “Parole sulla città dell’anima”, 1997)
Protected within the 16th century ramparts, Urbino sits in a panoramic position overlooking the Metauro and Foglia valleys; with its palaces and brick and marble houses, its stone façades along narrow streets and steep alleyways, it still tells the fairytale of a squint-eyed man of arms, the lord of a tiny but strategic State who wanted to incarnate in his Duchy the heart of the culture of that period, the Renaissance, in which man was at the centre of the universe, in which functions and needs were rediscovered, knowledge prospected new horizons, and art became the font of teaching. 

THE DUCAL TREASURE CHEST
The history of Montefeltro, that portion of territory in the Marches delimited by three regions (Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria) at the feet of the Apennines and only 30 km from the sea, is a story of disputes and encounters.
Over the centuries, due to its strategic position between the Adriatic coastal cities and west-central Italy (through the Passo della Scheggia, the most accessible pass of the Apennine range), as well as its particular orographic conformation, its lands have been violated many times by wars and bloddy battles. In fact, its lanscape is characterised by 4 rivers that flow, parallell, to the sea as they carve valleys (Val Marecchia, Valconca, Valle del Foglia and Val Metauro) through the woods of Mounts Carpegna, Nerone and Catria dominated by peaks and sheer rocky drops, excellent natural defensive positions; no other area in Italy can boast the presence of such numerous citadels, castles, towers, and fortifications.

A HUGE CONSTRUCTION YARD
The history of Montefeltro is the fruit of its land and of the peoples that have brought it to life. And this land is replete with the gems left by these peoples and their encounters.
The art and culture that are most pervasive in these lands, however, coincide with the proliferation of the medieval villages gathered around the hillside castles during the passage from feudalism to the Comunes and then to the great Lordships. Still today, many of these castle settlements still exist and conserve their ancient denominations, whether large or small. 

THE MONTEFELTRO'S SONS AND GUESTS
Although they lived a large part of their life in other parts of Italy and Europe, the Montefeltro counts among its “sons” several masters of renaissance art, like Raphael Sanzio, one of the greatest artists of all time (he was born in 1483 in the city of Urbino, where you can visit his family home), or the architect Donato Bramante, a native of Fermignano, or Taddeo and Federico Zuccari, from Sant’Angelo in Vado  who were painters of the following century.
Others had a stronger bond with their origins, for example the painter Federico Barocci, whose masterpieces adorn the Church of the SS. Crocifisso in Urbania (where Francesco Maria II Della Rovere, the last Duke of Urbino, wanted to be buried), Federico Brandani, a decorator who actively worked in the Palazzo Ducale of Urbino, the Brancaleoni Castle in Piobbico, and who was also the author of the splendid baroque crèche in the Oratorio di S. Giuseppe, in Urbino, or Gaetano Lapis, an 18th century painter whose works are conserved in Cagli (his birthplace) and Cantiano.
Giovanni Santi was no less famous among his contemporaries, although his fame was later overshadowed by that of his son, Raphael; Santi was the official painter and poet of the ducal court and his paintings are displayed in the Ducal Palace, the Oratorio di Santa Croce and at the Montefiorentino Convent near Carpegna.
These zones also attracted others in their itineraries: Torquato Tasso (Urbino, Barco di Casteldurante and Villa Isola in the vicinity of Fermignano), Ludovico Ariosto (Barco, as well), and Leonardo Da Vinci (who met Macchiavelli in Urbino).

A RESPITE FOR THE SPIRIT 
Climbing up through these valleys with their crags dotted with parish churches and chapels, in the direction of Mounts Carpegna, Nerone and Catria, one is fascinated by the discovery of the places where the continuity with the previous civilisations is most tenaciously preserved in a silent setting where the soul’s serenity is far from the dangers and anguish of time: Piandimeleto, Lamoli, Cantiano, and especially in the area surrounding Cagli and Acqualagna, in the millenary shadow of the Abbey of San Vincenzo al Furlo and the Monastery of Fonte Avellana.
Saint Francis of Assisi, in the course of his evangelisation pilgrimages to the tuscan hermitage of Verna (which was given to him at San Leo), linked his name to places along his way by miraculously bringing forth numerous fountain-heads and springs.

LIVING GEMS
The talent of the people of this land is in having kept intact the respect and admiration for its uniquely beautiful natural setting over the centuries.
Still today, every curve opens a palette of colours to feast the eyes: from the intense yellows of the sunflowers and ripe grain to the greens of the vineyards and woods, while the waterways, at times still, at times coursing, often give life to curative springs (for example Montegrimano and Macerata Feltria), they spread in crystalline rills and streams or in sudden falls to be navigated by kayak or canoe (for example, the rapids of the Bosso and Burano).
The rolling hills of clayey land suddenly rise to form calcareous peaks, sandstone hills with unusual shapes, and rocky plateaux, often rich in fossils, vestiges of the marine environment they were part of millions of years ago.
From the tops of the peaks, the view spans from the Pianura Padana to the Monti Sibillini and there is enough wind (for example on the highlands of Mount Petrano, between Cagli and Cantiano) for hang-gliders, and the more simple type kites, to glide over the pastures dotted with junipers, hawthorns or over the turkey-oak and beech woods.
Here, the typical Appenine fauna remains unscathed: you can find wolves, roes or the larger fallow deer and deer, wild boars that plow the earth in search of acorns and tubers, or be surprised by wild horses that the Avellana hermits introduced into the Mount Catria area, giving origin a truly indigenous race. 
The foliage and the hollows of the great trees, the rocky mountainsides, the hedges and cultivated land often hide blackcaps, finches, blackbirds, robins, woodpeckers and various types of titmice, while skylarks, quail and hoopoes favour the open spaces.  Over 100 hundred species of birds have been recorded (some rare, like the acquatic swallow, near rivers, the very fast peregrine or the honey-buzzard), including birds of prey, from the most common like the elegant buzzard and the small staniel, to the golden eagle that nests secure in the steep mountainsides of the Gola del Furlo and from there descends to hunt in the zone of the Cesane, above Urbino, and farther.
On foot, on mountain bike, on horseback, every area of the Montefeltro is replete with paths and tracks of different lengths and ranging in difficulty, all are marked by the CAI (Italian Alp Association) and are linked in many places to the “Sentiero Italia” (Path Italy), which runs through all of the Apennine range, from Liguria to Abruzzo.



GENUINE AND GENEROUS FLAVOURS
Montefeltro is an island the uppermost tip of which is at the “Poggio dei Tre Vescovi”, the meeting point of the confines of the Marches, Emilia Romagna, and Tuscany, near Casteldelci, a land of woodsmen, hunters and truffle collectors.
Here, two distinct dietary and gastronomic cultures, the “tosco-marchigiana” and the “romagnola”, meet and come together in a centuries old blend that still honours simplicity and imagination: a small number of condiments and a richness of flavours in intense harmony at open hearth fires, in wood burning stoves, and at the mouth of the ovens used to bake bread. The result is a culinary tradition that perpetuates the old, genuine methods of curing meats, making cheese, cultivating grapes, gathering mushrooms, truffles and other woodland fruits, using the farmer’s know-how in combining ancient home style traditions that respect the natural rhythm of the seasons with careful attention in creating the finished product.