The church of Santa Maria Assunta is the cathedral of Pesaro and the seat of the archdiocese of the same name; it bears the honorary title of minor basilica.
What to see
The façade dates from 1282-1312, is in exposed terracotta brick and keeps the typical features of the Romanesque style. The interior, in the form of a Latin cross with three aisles divided by piers, is Neoclassical. In the right aisle are the chapel of Saint Terence, where the relics of the saint and of other patron saints of the city are kept, and a fourteenth-century fresco of the Madonna del popolo; in the left aisle, the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. Above the entrance door is an eighteenth-century canvas by Marco Benefial showing the Assumption of Mary among saints, and in the left transept a Crucifixion with Saints by Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi, of the seventeenth century. The presbytery is rich in works: a fifteenth-century fresco of the Madonna della misericordia, the chapel of the Crucifix with a fifteenth-century wooden crucifix and the tombs of the local bishops, a fifteenth-century fresco of the Madonna and Child with Saints Peter and Jerome, attributed in 2000 to the school of Giovanni Santi. The apse is a modern work, with frescoes and stained glass of 1950 showing the city's patron saints: Serafina Sforza, Decenzio, Terenzio, Eracliano and Felicia Meda. The pipe organ is a Mascioni opus 914, built in 1970.
Under the floor, in the second half of the nineteenth century, two superimposed mosaics were discovered, which attest to two Early Christian churches: the first of the fourth century, the second of the second half of the sixth, after the first had been destroyed during the Gothic wars. The floor of the second level, the result of interventions between the sixth and the thirteenth century, was the only one visible; since autumn 2025 the one beneath can be admired too, through a new glass pavement. The church became a cathedral when the relics of the patron saint, Saint Terence, to whom it was first dedicated, were transferred to it; it was enriched with gifts from the Malatesta and the Sforza, and the Blessed Serafina Sforza, whose incorrupt body was buried here, is also venerated in it. It was then completely rebuilt in the Baroque style, with the destruction of the apse, bell tower, baptistery and colonnaded atrium, and consecrated to Mary Assumed in 1663; between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth the interior was reshaped in Neoclassical style by Giovanni Battista Carducci and Luigi Galli. With the Napoleonic spoliations seven works were sent from the city to France in 1796 and only three came back; among those that stayed is an Annunciation attributed to Caravaggio, now in the museum of Nancy.
Visiting
The cathedral is in Pesaro. The sources consulted give neither opening hours nor how the mosaics can be visited: information can be sought on the official website (domuspesaro.it) and on the one dedicated to the mosaics (pesaromosaici.it).
Our editors' tip
Look for the new glass pavement opened in autumn 2025: it lets you see the mosaic floor beneath, which for centuries stayed hidden.
