Macerata

Macerata was a hill town of the Marche between the Chienti and Potenza rivers. A self-governing commune since 1138, it gained in standing when Pope John XXII moved a bishop’s seat there in 1320.

In the sixteenth century Macerata gained bastioned walls and civic buildings, while the Accademia dei Catenati made it a centre of humanist letters. The town joined the anti-French rising in 1799, and French troops stormed and looted it that year. It later remained a provincial city of the restored Papal States.