All the monuments in Ancona
The landmarks and masterpieces worth planning a day around.
Cattedrale di San CiriacoAncona CathedralHarbor-hill cathedral, Greek-cross plan, Byzantine-style dome, carved lion protiro, Aphrodite temple siteSan Ciriaco stands on Ancona’s Guasco hill, the acropolis where Syracusan Greek settlers once raised a temple to Aphrodite to watch over their harbor. A paleochristian basilica went up on the same spot in the sixth century, and by the eleventh it had become the city’s cathedral; the Greek-cross plan and thirteenth-century twelve-sided dome, rare for Italy, borrow as much from Byzantium as from Romanesque builders back home. The protiro at the entrance rests on two carved stone lions, medieval guardians still doing their job. Bombed in the Second World War, the cathedral was rebuilt stone by stone; restorer Giuseppe Sacconi had already stripped its Baroque overlay around 1900, so what stands today reads close to medieval. The terrace outside gives one of the best harbor views in the Marche.Plan the visit
Arco di Traiano di AnconaArch of Trajan of AnconaHarbor-mole arch of 115 AD, Apollodorus of Damascus, slender Corinthian columns, Trajan’s port giftTrajan paid to enlarge Ancona’s harbor at his own expense around 100 AD, and a grateful Senate raised this arch on the mole itself, dedicating it around 115. Likely designed by Apollodorus of Damascus, the same architect behind Trajan’s Column in Rome, it is built of pure white Greek marble, its fluted Corinthian columns giving it a slenderness unusual among Roman triumphal arches. Six bronze statues once stood along its attic, facing land and sea, and fourteen bronze ship’s rams decorated it; all were stripped during a Saracen raid in 839. A 2000 restoration removed the nineteenth-century railings that had fenced it off, and today it stands open on the harbor mole, visible from the cathedral hill above and from ships still entering the port it was built to celebrate.
NatureMonte ConeroWhite cliffs over the Adriatic, Due Sorelle sea stacks, arbutus woods, eighteen hiking trailsThe Adriatic’s flat western shore breaks only once between Trieste and the Gargano promontory, at Monte Conero’s white limestone prow above Ancona. The mountain rises straight from the sea to 572 meters, its cliffs dropping into water that shifts from turquoise to deep blue with the light. Eighteen marked trails cross pine and arbutus woods that scent the air with myrtle and rosemary, many ending at a viewpoint over the Due Sorelle, twin sea stacks guarding a beach reachable only by boat or a steep path down from Sirolo. Golden eagles and peregrine falcons nest on the cliffs, and Sirolo and Numana, the two towns sharing the headland, still feel like fishing villages that happened to end up beside a nature reserve.
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More within reach
Monuments a day trip away, elsewhere in Marche.
LoretoBasilica della Santa CasaThe Holy House of Nazareth, marble screen by Bramante's school, Black Madonna, hilltop pilgrim city
GengaFrasassi CavesAbisso Ancona chasm, giant stalagmites, Valadier temple hermitage, guided cave tour
UrbinoUNESCODucal Palace of UrbinoFederico da Montefeltro's court, twin-turret facade, studiolo intarsia, Piero's Flagellation
Serra Sant'AbbondioHidden GemFonte AvellanaCamaldolese hermitage since 980, Dante’s stay, sole Camaldolese abbey, historic pharmacy
MacerataSferisterio of MacerataNeoclassical arena, hundred-meter acoustic wall, summer opera festival since 1967, ball-game origins
Ascoli PicenoPiazza del Popolo of Ascoli1509 Julius II redesign, travertine paving, Caffe Meletti anisetta, Palazzo dei Capitani tower
Castelleone di SuasaHidden GemSuasaDomus dei Coiedii mosaics, Roman forum and amphitheater, civic archaeological museum
TolentinoHidden GemChiaravalle Abbey, Fiastra1142 Cistercian foundation, Romanesque-Gothic church, six historic grance farms, surrounding nature reserve