Palazzo Brunelli

A row of arches on Corso Giannelli anchors Urbisaglia's street life. Palazzo Brunelli, a porticoed building raised in the first decades of the nineteenth century, placed a covered public room at the centre of the borgo, and its logge have long formed a centre of town life.

Why it matters

Small hill towns of the Marche often concentrate their public life on a single piazza; Urbisaglia has the unusual luxury of an arcaded street as well. The palazzo's portico created sheltered space for market days, conversation and passage whatever the weather, and the logge have long been a centre of town life. Architecturally, the building marks the moment when the medieval borgo, rebuilt and settled on its hill after the decline of Roman Urbs Salvia below, received elegant nineteenth-century frontage along its main street. The portico remains a distinctive part of the town's public streetscape.

What to notice

The rhythm of the ground-floor arches runs the length of the facade, deep enough to provide shelter; above, the upper floors keep the plain, sober lines typical of the period. The building occupies the bend of Corso Giannelli between two fixed points of the townscape: the Chiesa Santissima Addolorata, the oldest church of the borgo, comes just before it on the same street, and directly opposite rises the Torre Campanaria, with its sundial above the war memorial. The palazzo stands between the Rocca and the memorial park at the edge of the borgo.

The arches and old paving around Piazza Garibaldi preserve the historic streetscape; the arcade also frames views down the valley towards the Fiastra.

Context and history

The palazzo belongs to the generation of buildings put up in the early 1800s, when the borgo consolidated the layout it still keeps: a main street running from Piazza Garibaldi to the town gates, churches and palaces shouldering each other along it. Urbisaglia had grown around its castle after the Roman city in the valley was abandoned, and by the nineteenth century the community, secure enough to invest in comfort, gave its principal street this arcaded face. The name Brunelli recalls the family associated with the property.

The portico's role in town life continues the building's historic association with gathering and exchange.