Ascoli Piceno and Jesi: Two Cities in Le Marche

There are at least two more cities I wanted to mention worth visiting in Le Marche. If Firenze/Florence wows you with its abundance of everything, it’s worth remembering the many pleasures to be found in the lesser-know and less- visited places of Italy. One can actually discover sights on one’s own, and you needed wait your turn within throngs of visitors

Ascoli Piceno

Ascoli Piceno is located towards the south of Le Marche. It has a pleasing Renaissance piazza, including a covered arcade along one side. 

all photos by JS

There’s much to appreciate about Ascoli, past and present. It was founded by an ancient Italic population called the Piceni, (thus its name, Ascoli Piceno ) several centuries before Rome was founded. 

The Piazza del Popolo (People’s Square), is its traffic-free, beautifully designed main square. It is one of the most elegant provincial squares in Italy with its travertine pavement and generous spaces.

The other main square, Piazza Arringo, is flanked by the Duomo/cathedral and the town hall, which now houses Ascoli’s historic art gallery, the Pinacoteca Civica. The Pinacoteca contains a carpet-bag collection of elaborate furnishings and decorative art ...  plus some really stand-out art , like that of Carlo Crivelli , the  Renaissance master painter associated with this region. 

Carlo Crivelli

detail, Mary Magdalene, Carlo Crivelli, 1480

I like Crivelli's paintings, though they fell out of favour once later Renaissance masters of realism took hold of the art scene. Crivelli's paintings seem fit better to Late Gothic style than Renaissance naturalism. Although he mastered perspective and fully rendered modelling of the human form, Crivelli seemed to prefer the sinuous lines, flat and filled space, highly decorative elements, and love of small details characteristic of an earlier epoch. He also continued to paint only in tempera, even after the fluidity of oil paints had come into use.  

The Fountains

Not sure why, but I gravitate towards the fountains in an old city.

Below are two close-up photos of the fountain in this piazza. Inventive and lively grace.

 
















   

Food in Ascoli

There is one absolutely famous dish from Ascoli. This cit is where it’s done best. It’s called Olive all'ascolana, or olives done in the Ascoli way.  Regional  olives are stuffed with pork, beef, chicken livers, tomato paste and Parmesan cheese and then fried! 

I have given recipes in these columns before. But, come on! You are not going to make them at home, are you?  Preparing the mix and filling all those little olive holes? You’ll just have to come here and get take-away. I tell you, for sure, one can get hooked on these tasty little morsels.

An Unusual Discovery

Here's an example of what happens when you're not in a tourist crowd in a place famed for all those pre-programmed things you  must see. You wander around and tend to find things of interest. For example, I found this window in a church whose name and exact location I no longer recall. (That’s a plug for putting captions on your photos at the time you take them.) I’m pretty sure it was the church of Saint FrancesAscoli Piceno.

Most of the stained glass windows in this church portrayed the expectable variety of religious themes. But this once was modern, and I did a double-take to make certain that I was correct in what I thought I saw.

The  central panel shows a depiction of Nazi brutality and concentration-camp victims. Especially when  placed here, among themes in the "house of god", this depiction,, makes a marked  impact.

I can only speculate  that the religious leaders and congregation here thought it significant to include this piece of relatively recent and very painful human history with more traditional evocative scenes relating the life and suffering of Jesus. To remind us of human cruelty and misguided ambitions? How remarkable, I thought, to include this window in a house of worship: to remind oneself  of the sins we  are capable of committing upon each other. In the name of what? 

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
~Adolph Hitler

There are antidotes to such enduring and often hateful cynicism. There have always been and, I trust, will be, people who value decency and mindfully search for truth, knowing it may not bet easily come by. But also knowing it cannot be indoctrinated or mass-influenced, and that it may  require both courage and exploration of differing viewpoints. 

Jesi

As for the courage to search for and uphold truth, I was surprised by this plaque to Girodano Bruno. in another nearby city. You might recall that Bruno is  the mathmatician and astronomer burned at the stake in 1600 after being found guilty of heresy by the Inquisition. His crime?  Bruno's scientific findings led him to propose the sun is a star, the earth being only one of its orbiters in a vast universe.  This idea didn't fit the hierarchical church values of the time.

This  plaque rests in the ancient stones walls of of the main piazza at Jesi.  Of course, it took several centuries before Bruno was so honourably commemorated as a "martyr of free thought".

Jesi  is very industrialized and not so lovely in its extensive lower city. But  its upper walled, historic medieval city provides yet another wonderful blast of the past in Italy.An impressive piazza is seen here, too, and some lovely works of art by Lorenzo Lotto are in its Pinacoteca. 

One of the things I love about Italy is how the old is cherished and maintains its use and value, as in this contemporary habitation of apartments (below), replete with hanging plants, in the medieval walls surrounding the historic city centre of Jesi.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News here.

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com