Monsano

The name comes from the Muses. Musianum means a place dedicated to them, and points to the Lauriola, a wood of laurels, Apollo's plant, where legend had them living. The arms still remember it: there is the lion of Jesi, which appeared in 1283 when the Holy See recognised the villa of Musiano as under the city's jurisdiction, and at the sides sprigs of laurel and oak, for the woods that once covered the hill. The present name was imposed by royal decree in 1864: before that the place was also Musciano, Mosciano, Mustrani, Montanello. The first document that names it is of 1197, as a dependency of the abbey of Valfucina.

The walls of Monsano were built by Jesi and pulled down by Jesi. In 1340, having lost Monte San Vito, the city decided to fortify Monsano: walls, the rank of castle, a bulwark of defence. The castle was a rectangle of about 200 metres by 90, with four corner towers, three pentagonal and one cubic, battlements and a drawbridge on its single gate, before the moat. But relations with Jesi stayed strained, and when things went badly the people of Monsano did not hesitate to go over to the enemy: so in 1461, during the struggles between the Malatesta and pope Pius II, the men of Jesi decided to pull the town walls down. The moat was filled in 1590 as unhealthy. Houses were then raised on the same lines, and the old borgo still keeps the perimeter, the polygonal corner towers and the gate.