What is Montefiore dell'Aso known for?

Six surviving panels of Carlo Crivelli's 1472 polyptych for the Church of Saint Francis, dismembered in the nineteenth century and reassembled in the town's museum. Adolfo De Carolis, symbolist painter and woodcut master born in Montefiore, with five hundred works held in the Polo Museale di San Francesco. Hilltop position at 412 meters on the ridge that divides the Aso and Menocchia valleys, with views east to the Adriatic and west to the Sibillini.

Where is Montefiore dell'Aso?

Montefiore dell'Aso is a comune in the province of Ascoli Piceno, Marche region of Italy, about 82 kilometers from Ancona.

Marche · Ascoli Piceno

Montefiore dell'Aso

A hilltop borgobetween the Aso and Menocchia valleys, holding six surviving panels of Carlo Crivelli's 1472 polyptych.

82 km / 51 mi

Nearest hub (Ancona)

1,986

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Borghi più belli d'Italia

Why come

Montefiore dell'Aso sitson the ridge that divides the Aso and Menocchia valleys, twenty-five kilometers from Ascoli Piceno and eleven from the Adriatic. The territory was settled in the Neolithic and developed under the Piceni, with Roman necropolises from the first and second centuries BC. Two earlier castles, Montefiore and Aspramonte, merged in 1178 into a single walled town that grew into a free commune. The Polo Museale di San Francesco, in the former Franciscan convent built between 1247 and 1303, holds the surviving fragments of the polyptych Carlo Crivelli painted in 1472 for the Church of Saint Francis: six panels, dismembered and sold on the antique market in the mid-nineteenth century, recovered and reassembled in the museum's Crivelli room. The same complex holds the Adolfo De Carolis Museum, with around five hundred works by the Montefiore-born artist, including sixty-nine preparatory oil sketches for the Salone dei Quattromila frescoes in the Palazzo del Podestà in Bologna.

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Gallery

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Known for

Polo Museale di San Francesco
Former Franciscan convent of 1247-1303, now a museum complex with the Crivelli room, the De Carolis museum and the Museum of Peasant Civilization.
Polittico di Carlo Crivelli
Six surviving panels from the 1472 polyptych for the Church of Saint Francis, recovered after the work was dismembered and sold in the mid-nineteenth century.
Museo Adolfo De Carolis
Around five hundred works by the Montefiore-born symbolist artist, with sixty-nine oil sketches for the Salone dei Quattromila frescoes in Bologna's Palazzo del Podestà.
Chiesa di San Francesco
Romanesque-gothic conventual church holding the sepulchres of Cardinal Gentile Partino, who died 1310, and the painter Adolfo De Carolis, with apse frescoes by the Master of Offida.
Centro storico
Walled medieval village on the ridge between the Aso and Menocchia valleys, formed in 1178 from the union of the earlier castles of Montefiore and Aspramonte.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September into October are the best months for Montefiore dell'Aso. The Aso valley turns green by May, the ridge catches sea breezes from the Adriatic eleven kilometers east, and the Sibillini stand visible on clear afternoons. July and August touch the high twenties; the centro storico at 412 meters stays cooler than the river valleys below and the museum rooms hold steady through midday. November through March is the quiet season, cold and often misty, with the Polo Museale on reduced winter hours. The Adolfo De Carolis room and the Crivelli polyptych are best seen in low light, almost empty on weekday mornings outside summer.