Marche Culture & Language

For a region of a million and a half people, Marche has an improbable cultural output, and most of it is still active rather than commemorated.

The Urbino Renaissance

Federico da Montefeltro's court produced a specific idea — that a ruler should be learned, restrained and a patron — that spread across Europe through Castiglione's Book of the Courtier. The Palazzo Ducale itself is the argument: not a fortress but a house built for study, with a studiolo lined in trompe-l'œil marquetry. Raphael's birthplace is a few streets away and is open.

Music

Gioachino Rossini was born at Pesaro in 1792, and the Rossini Opera Festival there has since 1980 been responsible for restoring much of his neglected work to the stage. At Macerata, the Sferisterio — built in the 1820s for a ball game played against a wall — turned out to have remarkable acoustics and has staged opera since 1921.

Literature

Giacomo Leopardi, born at Recanati in 1798 and among the greatest European poets of the century, wrote L'infinito about a hedge on a hill above his family's house. Both the hill and the library he read his way through are open to visitors.

Craft and industry

Fabriano has made paper since the 13th century and is credited with inventing the watermark and with mechanising pulp production — innovations that made European paper competitive with parchment. Castelfidardo has built accordions since 1863 and remains a world centre of the trade, with a museum to match. The Fermo-Macerata district is one of Italy's main shoemaking areas.

Festivals

Ascoli Piceno's Quintana is a costumed equestrian tournament held twice a year with the whole city involved. Loreto's pilgrimage calendar culminates in December, and Offida's Carnival involves a mock bull chased through the streets.

Italian is universal. English is spoken in Urbino and the larger coastal resorts, less so in the inland valleys.

• Buongiorno / buonasera — on entering any shop or bar.
• Per favore, grazie, prego.
• Il conto, per favore — the bill, not brought unasked.
• Un tagliere di ciauscolo — a board of the local spreadable salami, the standard thing to order with a glass of wine.
• Il brodetto è per due? — is the fish stew for two? It usually is.

Dialects vary noticeably along the region, reflecting the valley structure: the northern varieties lean toward Romagnolo, the southern toward Abruzzese, and speakers from opposite ends of Marche can find each other hard going. Standard Italian is what everyone uses with outsiders.