Potenza Picena is a comune (municipality) in central Italy, situated in the Province of Macerata, in the Marche region. It has residents.
Until 1862, it was called Monte Santo.SIUSA The river Potenza flows nearby.
Geography Territory The bordering municipalities are Civitanova Marche, Montecosaro, Montelupone, Porto Recanati and Recanati.
Modern Potenza Picena counts three frazioni: Porto Potenza Picena, San Girio and Montecanepino.
The town looks like a typical medieval village, perched on top of a hill, and surrounded by a ring of walls. Its monumental appearance is characterized by the presence of many churches (once 27) and their belfries.
Porto Potenza Picena (or just Porto Potenza) is the biggest inhabited area of the comune, situated in the area formerly occupied by a Roman settlement called Sacrata. It's a seaside resort with mainly sandy beaches interspersed with short cliff zones.
Montecanepino is located on a nearby hill. Its name derives from “canepini”, the rope-makers who used hemp (canapa in Italian) long ago.
San Girio consists of a reduced number of houses built around the Sanctuary of San Girio.
Climate According to the Köppen climate classification, Potenza Picena belongs to the Sca subgroup, the typical Mediterranean climate, presenting both temperate and continental elements.
The territory, covering a wide area from the coast to the hinterlands, makes possible a great variance of temperature between the shores and the inland zones.
In general, the weather is mild for the great part of the year, with a brief sultry period during summer and short snowfalls during winter. Both in summer and winter there's a medium level of the humidity rate.
Hydrography The river Potenza, known as Flosis during Ancient Rome times, passes through the province of Macerata and names the area as the Potenza Valley.
The river begins in Fiuminata, more precisely in Monte Vermenone, and flows in its wide valley for approximately 95 kms until it reaches the Adriatic Sea in Porto Recanati.
The river crosses the following main inhabited centres: Potenza Picena, Castelraimondo, San Severino Marche, Montelupone, Recanati e Porto Recanati.
Anciently, it has served as an essential path for commerce and communication. Even the poet Giacomo Leopardi may have sung its praises in his poem “La quiete dopo la tempesta” (The stillness after the thunderstorm).
The origins of the name The current name of Potenza Picena is quite recent. On the 21st of December 1862, the municipal council transformed the medieval name of Monte Santo to Potenza Picena. The history of the town is very ancient – in 184 BC it became a Roman colony (Potentia), later destroyed during the 5th century. In the early Middle Ages, it was rebuilt on a nearby hill as Monte or Castel San Giovanni. The emperor Henry V demolished it in 1116. After being reconstructed in 1128, it kept the name of Monte Santo until the current Potenza Picena was chosen in 1862.
The term "Potenza" clearly recalled the ancient and noble Roman town of Potentia, whose collapse and depopulation brought to the birth of the village of Monte Santo, in a safer and more inner territory. The addition of the adjective "Picena" was required not only by the need to diversify from the Lucanian administrative centre (Lucania was the ancient Basilicata, the Italian region whose most important town is Potenza), but also to remember that the Piceni inhabited this land, as testified by several archaeological findings and necropolis. Still today, the origin of the Piceni is mysterious and unknown. According to the legend, they reached these lands coming from Sabina (an ancient region located in central Italy) following the flight of a woodpecker, their sacred animal. The now abandoned Roman town Potentia was located along the central Adriatic Italian coast, near the modern town of Porto Recanati, in the province of Macerata. It was founded in 184 BC under the consulate of Publius Claudius Pulcher and Lucius Porcius Licinus, most likely between the Potenza river's mouth and the Abbey of Santa Maria.
History Potenza Picena takes its name from the ancient Potentia, a flourishing Roman colony whose first information dates to 184 BC. It was destroyed in the 6th century, during the Gothic war. Some of the survivors founded the village of Monte Santo on the adjacent hill, around the ancient parish church of Santo Stefano (Saint Stephen), that was situated on the highest spot (the current Piazza Matteotti). The most ancient document that testifies the existence of the parish church and the inhabited centre, both fiefs of the Fermo bishop, dates back to 947 AD.
Monte Santo gained independence as a comune (initially castrum) in the September of 1128, when Liberto, prelate of Fermo, refused the food supply the inhabitants owed to him and to preside over the tribunal of that time. Despite Monte Santo was released from the feudal subjection, the bishop had still handled the foreign issues and the law for over a century. Over the years, Monte Santo gained more and more freedom. In 1252, Pope Innocent IV granted the village the right to independently elect the podestà, who mainly had judicial duties. In 1376, Pope Gregory XI agreed on the so called “mero et mixto imperio” – the highest degree of verdict –, the capital penalty. In those years, several wars caused bloodshed to the region (the ancient Marca – a medieval Europe definition for a type of borderland – from which derives the current Marche), directly also involving Monte Santo: the municipal territory devastation carried out by the Ghibellines from Osimo, guided by the brothers Lippaccio and Andrea Guzzolini, dates back to 1318. In 1407, the population, sheltered in the walls’ bastions, prevented Lodovico Migliorati, Lord of Fermo, from entering the village. Along with his soldiers, he was attacked by verbal insults, arrows, javelins, and rocks.
The inhabited centre developed around the ancient Santo Stefano parish church, which, in 1796, was demolished in order to enlarge the municipal square where it was set. From that moment, public shows, games, and sport competitions were organised in this area – the most popular show was the “giostra del bue” (ox ride), also called “dello steccato” (fence ride), a sort of corrida with violent features, at such a stage that it was forbidden during the Napoleonic dominion.
The coat of arms The municipal coat of arms of Potenza Picena is composed by a cross in a red field on top of five hills. According to the tradition, while the cross stands for Monte Santo, the hills represent five minor communities: Gerola (or Girola), Terchio (or Tergi), Sacrata (that reminds the near ancient Roman city never revived), Monte Coriolano (or Monte Grugliano) and Santara.
Main sights
Religious architecture
Collegiata di Santo Stefano
The Collegiate church of Saint Stephen was dedicated to Santo Ignazio (Saint Ignatius), founder of the Society of Jesus. The annexed building on the left side of the temple, now almost entirely used as lodging for the Daughters of Our Lady of Sorrows congregation and in a small part as a sacristy and meeting hall, was also the Jesuit college of Monte Santo until 1773, the year of the suppression of the Society of Jesus. The facade has remained unfinished. The peasant congregation (one of the two congregations of the Jesuits) arranged the underground crypt of the Collegiate church that lays below the entire building. The Chapel of the Peasants is completely frescoed, with decorative elements recalling the countryside and the peasant world, by Benedetto Biancolini, a painter from the Marche region. On the left we find the Chapel of the Artists, an important place of worship within the Collegiate church.
Chiesa della Madonna delle Grazie The Church of Our Lady of Graces is located nearby San Giovanni's Gate (one of the three entrances to the village) and plays an important role in the Potenza Picena religious history. The temple stands where, originally, there was a votive niche, enlarged during the years due to the believers’ will. According to the tradition, the Madonna and Child depiction on the wall was narrated to distribute graces. In fact, the place was already mentioned as “Via Gratiarum” (Graces street) in the Municipal Statute of 1431.
Chiesa di San Giacomo The Church of James the Great, located near the Galiziano Gate, dates to the second half of the 14th century. The construction development of the village and the church, and the officiation of the latter, are linked to the Corpus Christi confraternity, also called the San Giacomo confraternity. They also took care of a hospital reserved to poor and ill people, situated next to the religious building. The Church was entirely renovated around the end of the 19th century, acquiring neogothic features. In 1943, the architect Eusebio Petetti redesigned the facade.
Chiesa di Sant'Agostino The former complex of Saint Augustine borders via Silvio Pellico and covers a remarkable portion of the old town. The first document, that certifies the presence of the Augustinians in Potenza Picena, dates back to 1250, when the church was entitled to Mary Magdalene. The interior of the church houses an altarpiece depicting “La Maddalena ai piedi della croce” (Magdalene at the foot of the cross) by Pietro Tedeschi, an ancient pipe chamber organ built in 1776 by master Giovanni Fedeli from Camerino and the precious panel painted by Bernardino di Mariotto in 1506 depicting “La Madonna con il Bambino tra i SS. Francesco, Antonio e Giovannino tra gli angeli musicanti” (The Madonna and Child among Saints Francis, Antonio and Infant John the Baptist among the Musician Angels). Alessandro Delpriori, Lorenzo di Giovanni de carris, detto il Giuda. Un pittore del cinquecento nelle marche, in Lorenzo de Carris e i pittori eccentrici nelle Marche del primo Cinquecento, a cura di Alessandro Delpriori, catalogo di mostra, Perugia, 2016, pag. 24. Today the church is deconsecrated and has become an auditorium, a cultural centre entitled to Ferdinando Scarfiotti, a production designer, Oscar winner in 1988 for “The Last Emperor” by Bertolucci.
Chiesa di Santa Caterina The Saint Catherine monastery and church's origins are still uncertain. According to a general Benedictine catalogue, reported by the scholar Monsignor Cotognini, the two buildings had been built in 1280. The church houses a polyptych painted in 1507 by Paolo Bontulli from Percanestro depicting the “Madonna con bambino tra i Santi Giacomo Maggiore e Rocco” (The Madonna and Child among Saints James the Great and Roch). The church is deconsecrated since 2007. As seat of the municipal photo archive managed by the photo club and entitled to Bruno Grandinetti, a photographer from Potenza Picena, it houses the Kodak Museum with more than 340 vintage cameras. They date back from the early 20th century to the 70s, and they are all part of Enzo Romagnoli's collection, later given to the Municipality.
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Neve
Around the ring of walls which divided the inhabited centre from the countryside, there were three churches, one nearby each of the village's gates, all dedicated to Saint Mary. Outside Marina Gate, there is the Church of Our Lady of the Snows. It had been dated to the 15th century, thanks to the fresco situated above the altar representing the “Madonna della Neve col Bambino e gli Angeli” (Our Lady of the Snows with Child and the Angels) by Pietro da Montepulciano, a painter from the Marche region. This church is linked to the pilgrimages since Potenza Picena was a transit location for those going to the Holy House in Loreto.
Chiesa dei Padri Cappuccini