[Territory]

Arquata del Tronto

The municipal county of Arquata del Tronto extends in the south-west of the Marche Region and borders on three other regions: the Abruzzo, the Lazio and the Umbria. The territory is composed mostly of mountains, from 580 m above sea level to the height of 2,478 m and is crossed by the river Tronto, from west to east, which separates the Sibillini Mountains from the Laga Mountains. The town of Arquata del Tronto rises on a hilltop in a strategic position and dominates the valley and the Salaria road below. The imposing Castle of the Citadel dominates the town with its two towers. There are no reliable documents on the origin of Arquata; some historians (Castelli, Agostini) identify it with the ancient Serpicanum, positioned between the two ‘Statio’ of the Tavola Peutingeriana: Ad Martis and Ad Aquas. The first mentions of Arquata date back to the 11th century. In 1255 the town submitted to Ascoli Piceno and received from it an ample autonomy. During the 14th century Arquata enjoyed a period of independence from Ascoli (from 1337 until 1429) when Pope Martino V ceded Arquata and its district to Norcia, which had contended it with Ascoli. After several vicissitudes along the whole 15th century, Arquata remained a possession of Norcia until the 18th century. With the French invasion in 1809, the prefecture of Norcia was abolished and Arquata went under the jurisdiction of Spoleto, main town of the canton; in that period the citadel was restored and it was supplied of bunkers and gun platforms, a permanent garrison was assigned to the town and it was declared, together with the citadels of Spoleto and Perugia, the third fortress of the department. After the fall of Napoleon, the Pontifical government of the Restoration took it away from the jurisdiction of the region of Umbria and incorporated it in the delegation of Ascoli Piceno in 1832. Presently, the municipal territory includes also twelve small villages and parts of two National Parks, that of the Sibillini Mountains in the north and that of the Gran Sasso and Laga Mountains in the south. In the villages of the territory it is possible to admire several artistic and historical beauties: the medieval Citadel (where, the legend says, there slept Giovanna D’Angio from Naples) and the Church of the Annunziata in Arquata. In Trisungo there are some interesting rests of the ancient Roman Salaria road and a travertine milestone of the years 16-15 b. C.; this milestone XCVIII, consisting of a drum of a travertine column, slightly tapered toward the top, was found in 1831 in the riverbed of the Tronto. The milestone documents a senate-consult, around 22 b. C., evidently suggested by Augustus, who decided the refit of the Salaria road in the valley of the Tronto river. The town of Spelonca houses in the parish church a Turkish flag from the battle of Lepanto (1571), together with numerous frescoes of the 15th and 16th centuries portraying the Madonna of Loreto with St Agata and St Francesco, both by artist Panfilo da Spoleto; moreover, the town boasts several Renaissance houses and bas-reliefs of the 15th and 16th centuries. In the town of Pretare, in the Church of St Maria a Vetere, there is a fresco by artist Fabio Angelucci from Mevale and the parish church houses a 17th century crucified Christ engraved in polychrome wood and 1.20 m tall. In the village of Capodacqua there is the octagonal Church of the Madonna del Sole: this is an extraordinary example of a central-plan temple; it was built in 1528 by the citizens of the town. On one of its two entrances there is a beautiful rosette, some inscriptions and invocations and the stylisation of the sun and the moon. In the bell-tower, the biggest bell dates back to 1558. In 1605 the bishop Donati, in a pastoral visit of the church, defines the oratory ‘pulcherrimum’ (very beautiful). During the centuries, the church has been attributed to the famous artist Cola D’Amatrice, but today this interpretation is refused. In the village of Colle, the Church of St Silvestro, which rises on the top of a precipice, houses some frescoes of 1511. In the village of Borgo, the Church of St Salvatore houses a 13th century Romanesque Crucified Christ engraved in polychrome wood, later repainted; the Christ is portrayed in a rigid posture, with horizontally opened arms and parallel extremities; it measures 1.45 m x 1.45 m. In the Church of St Francesco, instead, it is possible to admire an original piece of the Sacred Shroud. In the village of Pescara, there is a very interesting astylar Cross made of embossed golden copper on a wood framework, dating back to the second half of the 13th century; it measures 41 cm x 34 cm and it is probably the most ancient metal cross to be found in the Marche Region. The Castle of the Citadel rises on a rocky spur, positioned in the north of the town. Being Arquata a border town, in the 11th-12th centuries, the hill was fortified and the castle was erected. The whole of the building structure, which forms the Citadel, has been subject to a series of modifications and enlargements; however it is possible to affirm that the first building element on the hill was the hexagonal, 12 m tall tower, positioned in the south-eastern corner. Attached to the tower were the walls of the castle, some rests of them are still visible today; they developed northward for 70 m circa, thus closing the only uncovered side of the hill; the path which linked the tower to the town was placed, as it is still today, on the eastern side of the promontory. This first defensive structure was erected on a place which enabled the complete dominance on the valley below. Between the 14th and 15th centuries, to assure more efficiency to the defensive structure, the northern tower was erected; it is 24 m tall and features a 7 m x 7 m square plan. This tower joined with the southerner hexagonal tower through a double line of walls which delimited a rectangular interior space of 21 m x 24 m. Examining the documents and the local findings, it is deducible that inside this kind of ‘square’ there must have been numerous buildings which permitted to many people to live in the citadel for months. An indication of this comes from the index-books of the municipal statutes of Norcia, which report about the election of the “castellani” (inhabitants of the castle) of Arquata (1428) and that “two citizens of the castle, together with eight members, had to be locked up in the citadel from October to March and get out of it only in case of necessity”. In the 15th century Arquata and its citadel were the spectators of ferocious battles between the citizens of Ascoli and those of Norcia for the possession of the territory, which however remained under the jurisdiction of Norcia until 1554 when, with the papal nominations of the magistrates, the local autonomy of the town ended. The last element built in the citadel is a 10 m large circular tower, positioned in the south-western corner with a trunk-shaped basis and a triangular buttress. This 12 m tall tower was completely filled with clay in its inside and, at the height of the battlements, it had an emplacement with pieces of artillery. Of this round tower today are visible only some foundations, brought to light by the recent restoring works. These works are now almost completely ended; they regarded the restoration of all the fortification elements and the realisation, in the vast interior courtyard, of several multifunctional halls. The intention of giving to the citadel an aspect of use and collective interest was a purpose of the architects who have projected the restoring works, Sandro D’Auria and Dario Nanni, together with the Municipal Administration Office, in the respect of the aesthetics of the building and considering it a guarantee for safeguard, correct maintenance and vitality of the monument.