Montemonaco stands at 988 metres in the upper Aso valley, and is the second highest comune in the Marche; the name comes from the Benedictine monks who settled on this plateau as early as the eighth century. In the thirteenth century it made itself a free commune and built high walls broken by towers, and from behind them it stood up to everyone: to Norcia, to Amandola, to Montefortino, and even to Francesco Sforza and Niccolò Piccinino, with whom it managed to strike agreements of mutual convenience while the neighbouring towns were being taken. Its statutes, set down in 1545, adapted the precepts of Saint Benedict.
That independence drew here, from the fourteenth century onwards, people who had fled from less tolerant places: Fraticelli, Clareni, Sacconi, followers of the Templars, heretics of every kind who found shelter in these mountains. But what made the village famous was the Sibyl, whose cave lies in this territory: in May 1420 the French squire Antoine de La Sale came here in person and wrote down what he had seen and what he had heard the people of Montemonaco tell. Years later, in the castle of Angers, he saw a tapestry depicting the Sibyl's cave and realised it looked nothing like the real place: that was when he decided to write the account of his journey.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 21 March
On 21 March Montemonaco celebrates its patron Saint Benedict; on 20 January the feast of Saint Sebastian is held, born of a vow after the great seventeenth-century plague.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Montemonaco, but an easy day trip away.
