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Home > Travel Italy > Italy Destinations > Macerata
Macerata
Italy, officially the Italian Republic or Repubblica Italiana, is a Southern European country comprising of the Po River valley, the Italian Peninsula and the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. It is shaped like a boot and for this reason Italians commonly call it lo Stivale, the boot or, due to its prevalent peninsular geographical nature, la Penisola, the Peninsula.
Macerata is a city in Italy, the capital of the province of Macerata in the Marche region. Macerata is known across the world for its annual open-air opera festival, Macerata is a human-scaled provincial capital that also warrants a visit for its other charms. The best of the city's palaces line Corso Matteotti, the road that leaves the square at the side of the Loggia, while Corso Della Repubblica will take you to Piazza Vittorio Veneto and the civic gallery and museum. Here is a mixed bag of works by Umbro-marchigiani painters most important is Carlo Crivelli's Madonna and Child.
Just north of the town, by the river at Villa Potenza, lies ancient Helvia Ricina. When the Visigoths destroyed this Roman settlement in the 5th-6th century, its inhabitants moved up to safer ground and founded Macerata. Remains of the old city can still be seen, including the large amphitheatre, which stands just by the junction with the SS571, as well as a stretch of stone-paved roadway.
A few kilometres to the south of the city lies another outstanding monument. The Romanesque church of San Claudio al Chienti is one of the region's earliest and most important churches. Its shape, quite unlike any other church in the Marche, is the first thing to strike you it is in fact two churches, built one above the other, with separate entrances and flanked by two cylindrical towers. Built between the 5th and 7th centuries, probably on top of the ruins of a villa which formed part of the Roman city of Pausulae, it was constructed using material from the ancient ruins. Its present shape dates from the 11th and 12th centuries. Inside, both the upper and lower churches are square in form, and supported on four solid central pillars. It is one of Italy’s most popular destinations, and is well known for the quantity of cultural related attractions and monuments that the city has embraced.
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