What is Monteprandone known for?

Born in Monteprandone in 1393, Franciscan preacher and Marche peacemaker, founder of the 1449 convent and returned to its sanctuary in 2001. Eighteen manuscript volumes written by San Giacomo della Marca for the convent library, kept today in the Civic Museum of Codes. Hilltop position at 266 meters above the lower Tronto, five kilometers from the Adriatic and twenty from Ascoli Piceno.

Where is Monteprandone?

Monteprandone is a comune in the province of Ascoli Piceno, Marche region of Italy, about 69 kilometers from Pescara.

Marche · Ascoli Piceno

Monteprandone

A hilltop borgoabove the lower Tronto valley, birthplace of San Giacomo della Marca and home to his fifteenth-century convent library.

69 km / 43 mi

Nearest hub (Pescara)

12,896

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Borghi più belli d'Italia

Why come

Monteprandone sitson a hill above the left bank of the lower Tronto valley, twenty kilometers northeast of Ascoli Piceno and five from the Adriatic at San Benedetto. Tradition traces the founding to the ninth century and a knight from Charlemagne's court named Prandone, who built the first castle. A papal bull of 13 May 1323 granted the village in perpetual fief to Ascoli Piceno. The defining figure is San Giacomo della Marca, born in town on 1 September 1393: Franciscan friar, student of Bernardino da Siena and Giovanni da Capestrano, peacemaker between Fermo and Ascoli in 1446 and 1463, traveller across Bosnia, Slovenia, Dalmatia, Hungary and Bohemia. He commissioned the Convento di Santa Maria delle Grazie in 1449 and built a library of eighteen manuscript volumes for friars and scholars, now in the Civic Museum of Codes. He died in Naples in 1476; his body was returned to the sanctuary in 2001.

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Gallery

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Known for

Santuario di Santa Maria delle Grazie e San Giacomo della Marca
Franciscan convent commissioned by San Giacomo della Marca in 1449, holding his returned body since 2001 and works by Vincenzo Pagani and Cola dell'Amatrice.
Museo Civico dei Codici di San Giacomo della Marca
Civic museum holding the eighteen manuscript codices written by San Giacomo della Marca for the convent library he founded in the fifteenth century.
Centro storico di Monteprandone
Walled hill village above the Tronto valley, with surviving gates and stepped streets that climb to the church of San Nicolò di Bari at the summit.
Chiesa di San Nicolò di Bari
Parish church at the top of the borgo, holding fifteenth-century works tied to the Della Marca convent and a panorama over the Tronto plain to the Adriatic.

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 Monteprandone. The lower Tronto valley turns green by spring and dry gold through the summer wheat harvest, with the Adriatic visible on clear afternoons and the Sibillini on the inland horizon. July and August touch the low thirties on the hill, with the centro storico quietest in the early afternoon. November through March is cool and often damp from the river plain below, with the sanctuary and the codex museum on reduced winter hours. Pilgrim flows pick up around the 28 November feast of San Giacomo della Marca.