Montefelcino

Montefelcino was long fought over between Fano and Fossombrone, and once the quarrel cost it its castle. The first document that names it is of 1224 and gives it to Fossombrone, under bishop Monaldo; in 1255 the men of Fossombrone, to take back control of the territory, destroyed it in reprisal. The matter ended before the pope: in 1300 Boniface VIII ordered cardinal Orsini to proceed at law against Fossombrone so that Montefelcino should be compensated. Then, when in 1445 Federico da Montefeltro bought Fossombrone from Galeazzo Malatesta, the village entered the duchy of Urbino; and during the brief rule of Cesare Borgia, in 1502, the mayor went to swear his oath at Fano.

The period that has left the most marks begins in 1570, when the castle was given in fief to the Milanese count Fabio Camillo Landriani, who had married Costanza, niece of duke Guidobaldo II, and who the following year took part in the battle of Lepanto with eighty volunteers. The feudal lord remade the village: he demolished the fortress and in its place built the palace, which with its unusual bulk still dominates the view and is today the town hall; he aligned the private houses on the line of the palace, had the square paved, imposed the service of the bargello for public order, appointed a schoolmaster and granted a tax-free market. Of that market the memory has stayed, and every summer in the old centre they hold the Mercatino del Feudatario. The main church is that of Saints Peter and Paul, which keeps an epigraph of 1299; and among the hamlets is Monteguiduccio, which until 1869 was a comune of its own.