Top 20 Castles in Pesaro e Urbino

The castle preserves original furnishings, 15th-century frescoes, and a chapel with terracotta altarpieces. The structure is famous for its connection to the story of Paolo and Francesca, the two lovers mentioned by Dante in the Divine Comedy. The village is known for its double ring of walls and drawbridge, examples of medieval military architecture. The interior houses the courtyard of honor, the torture chambers, and the room attributed to the betrayal of the two young people.

Urbino is a city in the Marche region, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its Renaissance-era historic center. It is located in a hilly area and is characterized by uphill streets, squares, and brick buildings. Among the main sites is the Ducal Palace of Urbino, home to the National Gallery of the Marche. Urbino is also the birthplace of Raffaello Sanzio, with a house-museum that can be visited. The city is home to the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, which contributes to the presence of students throughout the year.

The Palazzo Ducale is a Renaissance ducal palace built primarily on the orders of Count Federico da Montefeltro between 1463 and 1472. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It's impossible not to fall in love with a village like Gradara, a symbolic place of the tragic love between Paolo and Francesca.

Entering the medieval village of Gradara has its own charm...

The Palazzo Ducale in Urbino is a Renaissance palace and houses the famous Renaissance picture gallery of the Marche.

The ruins of the Mondelacasa Castle (or Monte della Casa), called the Muracci, are located on the northern slopes of Mount Nerone, on the left bank of Val d'Abisso, at 707 m above sea level, about 1 km south of the historic center of Piobbico. (from COMUNE PIOBBICO 1999): Close to Mount Nerone stands a massive buttress whose base widens between the Biscubio torrent and the Petrello stream (Fosso di S. Maria) and carries the ruins of an ancient artifact on the summit. It was a castle, a primitive dwelling that the Brancaleoni, who arrived around the year 1000 in the Biscubio District, built and lived in until the mid-1300s. This is how our Costanzo Felici (1) describes it in a document from 1582:... climbing up to Monte Nerone a mile away on a rough and terrible hill and rock, there are vestiges of a superb, large and beautiful palace or fortress now in ruins, of which those (Brancaleoni) of Piobico were the owners. Built by Gentile Brancaleoni in the first half of the 13th century, it took the name of Mons Casa or Mondelacasa, today Muracci because of the ruins visible on the summit. Towards the middle of the 14th century, both because of the harshness of the place, difficult to reach when ... winter almost buried the tower under the snow, locked it under the grip of the ice, tormented it with the blizzard, confining it for months in isolation, and because of the need for other and more comfortable comforts, the two brothers Pazzo and Federico Brancaleoni decided to settle in the house that they had begun to build "in castro Plobici", on the hill to the right of the confluence of the Biscubio with the Candigliano, where there were already small houses piled up, that is, equipped with a watchtower with a Gothic arch portal to the north and a castle to the south-east. It is the place where the Brancaleoni Castle-Palazzo will develop and take shape over time. NOTE: (1) Costanzo Felici was born in the second decade of the 16th century in Casteldurante (now Urbania). However, he preferred to define himself as a native of Piobbico, where his ancestors had moved around 1330. He practiced medicine in Piobbico, Sant'Angelo in Vado, Pesaro, Rimini and Urbania. At the same time, he cultivated naturalistic and historical studies with notable results. He died in Pesaro on February 5, 1585. taken from: https://www.lavalledelmetauro.it/contenuti/beni-storici-artistici/scheda/11123.html

Beautiful town, worth taking a break