ANCIENT DREAM - HAMLET

→ Marche → Urbino → Piobbico

Piobbico

Suggested length
of stay: one day

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Piobbico is a little town village resting in a small valley enclosed by Mount Nerone and Mount Montiego. Its territory is crossed by two streams: the Biscubio, which rises in Bocca Serriola and the Candigliano, which rises in Scalocchio (PG).
The hamlet is made up of a medieval compound, dominated by the Palazzo Brancaleoni, which features harmonious shapes closed between two doors; one is placed on the limit of the bridge across the Candigliano river and the other is located on the side overlooking the church of S. Pietro.
The history of this hamlet is rooted to an ancient past. The first settlements date back to prehistory, but only in the Neolithic era was there a more constant development of the primitive settlements.
Since 295 B.C., after the Agro Sentino battle, victorious Rome acquired absolute supremacy over central Italy. The territory around Mount Nerone under Augustus was part of the VI Region and under Diocletian (279 A.D.) it entered the territories of the Flaminia, or Picena Region.
The name, Piobbico, is supposedly to be ascribed to the times of the social war, between the Romans and Piceni, which broke out around 90 B.C. in the bordering lands, among which was the most important one, Acqualagna. After the peace agreement was stipulated, a great portion of the territory extending to the south, from Mounts Nerone, Petrano and Catria, to the north up to Mounts Paganuccio and Pietralata, and to the east from Cinisco-Cesano, situated to the west of the Metauro river, became centuriate areas. In other words they were allotted to the "milites", whereas the portions of land behind the Nerone, where today the town rises, remained "ager publicus", that is to say, left out from the allotted lands. The name, Piobbico, supposedly comes from the alteration of the adjective "publicum", a noun indicating the very territory situated on the hilltop to the right of the merging of the Biscubio and Candigliano rivers.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the areas at the back of the Appenine entered the Lombard’s domination, which was swept away by Charles the Great in 774 A.D. With Charles the Great and his successors a fief organisation consolidated, in which the great land extension of the Nerone, which around year 1000 had become the Biscubio district, was enfeoffed to the earl family Brancaleoni. From the XI to XVIII centuries, the entire political and historical vicissitudes of the Piobbico territory were identified with this family’s history.
The superb castello of the ancient family still dominates from the hill above the village, surrounded by the houses of the old medieval 'borghetto'. The fortress winds around several courtyards and affords a view of rooms richly decorated with frescoes, stuccos, coats of arms and late renaissance fireplaces. Absorbing previous medieval parts, the restoration of the castle was carried out between the XV and XVI centuries, at the time of Guido Brancaleoni and his son Roberto. The latter died in 1538 and it was left up to the nephew Antonio to commission the more consistent extension as witnessed by the date 1587 inscribed in the first courtyard. In 1625, at last, the oratory of S. Carlo, which was to be a palatine chapel, was built to the left of the entrance portal.
During the XIV century many families found exile in Piobbico from their native towns, due to relentless fights between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions. Among them were the Michelini, Pazzaglia, Maffei, Contini, Bartolucci, Vandini, Ubaldi, Ferri and Guelfucci.
Among the most illustrious to be remembered was the Felici da Lucca family, which churned out literates, mathematicians, jurists, militaries and prelates.
Piobbico became an autonomous municipality in 1827, during the territory reorganisation of the Papal State, after the definitive abolition of the Feudal system wanted by Pio VII in 1816.
Besides sheep farming, cattle breeding and timber for wood and coal production, in the past these lands were also used for growing the scotano, a much sought-after shrub for leather tanning, because of its high content of turpentine and tannin, and the guado, a plant with yellow flowers whose duly treated and grinded leaves were used to extract a powder for dyeing fabric and paper especially sold in Tuscany by Florentine dyers.

Monuments

Inside the borgo...
Palazzo Brancaleoni
Oratorio di S. Carlo
Chiesa di S. Pietro
Chiesa di Santo Stefano
Museo Civico Brancaleoni
Macina da Gualdo

In the outskirts...
Chiesa di S. Maria in Val d'Abisso
Castel Pecorario e le Ville
I Muracci
The borgo of Acqualagna