On 19 February 1797 Napoleon dictated the Treaty of Tolentino to Pope Pius VI here, shipping dozens of papal masterpieces to Paris — and in 1815 the town hosted the battle that cost Joachim Murat the Kingdom of Naples. Twice into European history, for a Marche town of 20,336 on the Chienti valley.
Pilgrims, though, come for something older: the basilica of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino guards the Cappellone, a chapel entirely frescoed by the Rimini school in the early fourteenth century — among the finest Giottesque cycles in the Marche. Outside town, the towered Rancia Castle has watched the plain since the 1300s.
Near Tolentino
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
