Trecastelli

Trecastelli is a new comune, and its name is a count: it was born from the merger of Ripe, Castel Colonna and Monterado, in force from the first of January 2014, with the three towns ceasing from that day to be comuni and becoming municipi; the seat is at Ripe. The problem of every merger — who comes first — was settled in the arms, granted in 2018: there are three towers, and they are aligned at exactly the same height, as a sign of equality and closeness, one for each of the three comuni that gave rise to the new one; above them, a golden star. None of the three stands higher than the others.

What the three brought with them is scattered through the hamlets. At Castel Colonna there are a Malatesta tower of the fifteenth century and the church of San Mauro Abate, which is of the thirteenth; at Monterado the castle, rebuilt in the eighteenth century; at Brugnetto the seventeenth-century palazzo Antonelli Castracani Augusti, which everybody calls the palace of the hundred windows. At Ripe the villino Romualdo, restored, houses the Nori de' Nobili museum, devoted to the painter from Pesaro who spent part of her childhood at Brugnetto itself, and together with it a study centre on women in contemporary visual arts. In the kitchen the name that keeps coming back is none of the three: the salami and the porchetta are called of the lands of Frattula.