PESARO
Pésaro,
stretches out towards the sea, it extends between the hills
of San Bartolo to the NorthWest and Ardizio to the SouthEast,
including the old historic centre, protected from the East
by the majestic Rocca Costanza and the modern City-Garden,
aligned along the coast, with long tree-lined and rectilinear
avenues.
Native land of Gioacchino Rossini, the City has noteworthy
artistic-musical traditions: the Rossini Theatre, Rossiniano
Museum, Music Conservatory, and the Institute of Art.
There is an annual festival of Rossiniane Music (the now internationally
noted “Rossini Opera Festival”) and a cinematographic
Exhibition.
There’s the old Pisaurum, Roman colony derived
in 184 BC on the Ager Gallicus, probably on the site of a
pre-existing habitation. During the second half of the 1st
Century BC, it welcomed a new colony of veterans from the
Octavian campaigns and from Antonio, and was finally included
in the VI Augustea region (Umbria, Ager Gallicus).
It was destroyed during the Gothic War of Vitige (539), and
retaken to be annexed to the Byzantine Empire by Belizario
who promised its reconstruction (544). It therefore became
a prosperous centre of Pentapoli Bizantina, resisting Longobard
pressure, which only later managed to gain control (752).
The City then lost control to the French, who conquered it,
only to then concede it to the Church (774), under which it
remained stable, governed by a Count nominated by the Pontificate.
It was an important stronghold during the Communal Period,
yet on numerous occasions feuding with neighbouring Fano for
territorial regions, until it joined the Imperial side during
the feuds between the Communes and Federico I. Brought back
under the compliance of Pope Innocenzo III (1198), after another
period of feuds with Fano, it was given by the Pontiff to
Azzo VI d'Este, Marquis of Ancona, as a fee from the Church.
The Ghibellina faction prevaling, the City was later given
to Federico II. Around the end of the 13th Century, after
another period of wars initiated between opposing factions,
Pesaro became a dominion of the Malatesta, who keep it until
the Albornoz brought back its stability under the power of
the Pope (14th Century), but also leaving them the vicarship.
The City was subsequently obtained by the Sforza. In the 1500’s
though, Alessandro VI declared the decline of Giovanni Sforza
and assigned the City to Cesare Borgia. In 1503, at the death
of the Pope, Giovanni Sforza († 1510) re-entered Pesaro,
but Pope Guilio II refused the investiture over his son, Giuseppe
Maria, called Costanzo II, and attributed it to his own nephew,
Francesco Maria Della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. These were temporarily
private with the event of the Royal Papal Throne benediction
of Leone X (1516), the Pope of the Medici family, who attributed
Pesaro to his nephew Lorenzo II de’Medici, which passed
on his death (1519) under the direct dominion of the Church.
When Leone X died (1521), Francesco Maria Della Rovere, regained
the investiture of Pesaro from Adriano VI and passed it on
to his descendants until the extinction of the family (1631).
From then on, the City passed under the direct dominion of
the Church, following its destiny until the Renaissance period.
During the Second War of Independence, the Pontificate troops
were concentrated in its defence, but on 11th September 1860,
they were then capitulated under the Piemontesi armed forces
led by General Cialdini.
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