This hamlet is located among the hills separating the high Foglia valley from the Conca, plunged in  a scenery of farmed lands and scattered patches of green woods. The town is made of a modern part situated on the plain and a medieval hamlet placed on a higher hilltop.
The houses in stone form the historical heart of the town, in such a way that they seem to collect around the pretty Torre Civica, dating back to the XII century - they once constituted the urban scheme of the old Castello di Macerata Feltria.
According to tradition, Macerata Feltria was founded by the Pelasgian, a legendary "people from the sea" from Lemmo, situated in pre-Ellenic Greece, who sailed the Adriatic to colonise southern and central Italy. The Pelasgic arc still marks the southern gate of the castello, placed there as a tribute to its mythical founders.
In proximity to today’s centre raised the old town of which pre-Christian ruins were found. After it became munucipium under Roman domination, with the name of Pitinum Pisaurense, the centre found itself in a very powerful strategic position; located on the crossroad between Romagna and Marche, and later among the lands belonging to the Malatesta and those of the Montefeltro, a place of obligatory passage for both those coming from the north and those on the safer routes that passed by San Leo.
Destroyed by the Goths around 552, on its ancient location, in the early Middle ages, the parish of S.Cassiano was founded, and reconstructed in its present features during the XII century, with a basilican plan on three aisles and numerous ruins from the previous construction. Its inhabitants, who in the meanwhile had found shelter among the hills, started building the new centre, erected in shape of a fortified 'castle', on the hill behind the Apsa stream valley.
In 1233 this territory’s 'free' men, pledged to be faithful to the Comune of Rimini, to which they did for the entire late Middle ages. Hence, for many years the castle was under the rule of the Gaboardi, captains of the Rimini municipality. During this time the Pdestà’s palace and tower and the church of S.Francesco were built.
In the  XV century the centre was involved in the fights between Sigismondo Malatesta and Federico da Montefeltro, and was definitely occupied by the latter in 1463, and separated from the Romagna territories and comprised in the dukedom of Urbino. It was then that the hamlet took on a Renaissance appearance, expanding the area of the old market and building on the Mondagano and Cernano walls.
From that time Macerata Feltria followed the ups and downs of the dukedom of Urbino until the extinction of the Della Rovere family in 1631, when the whole dukedom fell under the rule of the Church and shared its vicissitudes until it was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.
In the town’s historical heart, the medieval walls unravel in a spiral onto the road, boasting the precious Gothic and late Gothic portals of the church of San Giuseppe, the great San Francesco convent, and palaces Mazzoli, Gentili-Belli and Antimi-Clari with the relevant noble chapel - the treasured tokens rooting back to an important past.
Today  Macerata Feltria is the headquarters to the 'Pitinum Thermae', a modern spa, where, thanks to appropriate hotels, visitors can enjoy the therapeutic sulphur spring waters. 

Monuments