Pesaro is a city of 95,000 on the northern Adriatic coast of the Marche, 40km north of Ancona and 30km south of Rimini. It is the birthplace of Gioacchino Rossini (1792–1868), the composer of The Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, and William Tell, and hosts an annual opera festival (Rossini Opera Festival, August) that is one of the most important in Italy. It has a Civic Museum (Museo Civico) containing Bellini's Coronation of the Virgin (1473), one of the great altarpieces of the Venetian Renaissance. It has a Roman Triumphal Arch (Arco d'Augusto, 27 BC) intact on the main street. It has a medieval fortress (Rocca Costanza) built by the Sforzas. And it has a long sandy beach on the Adriatic that fills with Italian families in summer and empties beautifully in September. Pesaro is systematically underrated, it lacks the single famous image that drives international tourism, but its composite quality is exceptional.
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Rossini in Pesaro
Gioachino Rossini was born in Pesaro on February 29, 1792 (in a leap year, he famously joked he aged at a quarter of the normal rate). He left Pesaro at age 14 and never lived there again, dying in Paris in 1868. But he remembered the city in his will: he left funds for a music conservatory (now the Conservatorio Statale di Musica G. Rossini, one of the finest in Italy) and the city has returned the compliment with the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF), founded in 1980, which each August stages rarely performed Rossini operas in new productions of international quality. The Casa Natale di Rossini (birthplace, Via Rossini 34) is now a museum with period objects, scores, portraits, and the piano on which Rossini composed. Ticket €5. The Fondazione Rossini (rossinioperafestival.it) manages the festival. Tickets sell out months in advance for the main productions.
The Bellini Altarpiece
The Museo Civico of Pesaro (Piazza Toschi Mosca) contains Giovanni Bellini's Coronation of the Virgin (1473), commissioned by Costanzo Sforza for the church of San Francesco. It is one of the major works of the Venetian Renaissance, a large polyptych in which the central panel (the Coronation) is surrounded by smaller panels of saints, all set within an elaborate carved and gilded frame. The landscape in the central panel is one of the earliest and finest examples of the Venetian landscape tradition, verifiable Venetian terrain (the lagoon, the hills behind Treviso) rendered with the attention and specificity that would characterize Bellini's mature work. The museum also contains maiolica from Urbino and Casteldurante (significant) and works by Marco Zoppo and other 15th-century painters. Ticket €6. The Pesaro civic museum is consistently undervisited by tourists who pass through on the way to Urbino, a substantial error.
Questions About Pesaro
How do I get to Pesaro?
By train: on the main Adriatic railway line (Bologna–Ancona), with direct trains from Bologna (1h20), Rimini (30 min), Ancona (1h). From Rome: Frecciarossa to Bologna then regional train, approximately 3h30 total. By car: A14 motorway, exit Pesaro–Urbino. Pesaro is 36km from Urbino, the two make an excellent combined day trip or multi-day base for northern Marche.
Is the Rossini Opera Festival worth attending?
For opera lovers: yes emphatically. The ROF specialises in Rossini's serious operas, the opera seria works that were dominant in his lifetime but are rarely staged elsewhere because they require the specific vocal technique (Rossinian bel canto, with extraordinary agility and range) that only a handful of singers in each generation can provide. The ROF auditions and contracts precisely these singers. The productions are in the Teatro Rossini (historic, beautiful, 1000 seats) and the larger Adriatic Arena. Book at rossinioperafestival.it, main productions sell out 2-3 months in advance.
What beaches are near Pesaro?
The beach at Pesaro itself, sandy, long, equipped with the standard Italian beach-club infrastructure, is one of the better beaches on the northern Adriatic. The coastline north toward Gabicce Mare and south toward Fano has similar quality. The Adriatic coast of the Marche is consistently cleaner and less congested than the Romagna coast to the north (Rimini, Riccione).
Curiosità su Pesaro
L'Arco d'Augusto di Pesaro (27 a.C.) è uno dei quattro archi trionfali augustei conservati in Italia (con quelli di Rimini, Aosta e Susa) ed è in condizioni eccezionali, ancora in piedi sulla via principale del centro storico (historic center), carrozzabile fino al XX secolo. La città romana di Pisaurum fu fondata come colonia latina nel 184 a.C. sulla Via Flaminia, la strada consolare che collegava Roma all'Adriatico. La Flaminia entrava in città dall'arco, attraversava il foro (oggi Piazza del Popolo) e proseguiva verso nord. La continuità topografica tra la Pesaro romana e quella moderna è leggibile passeggiando dal centro storico alla spiaggia: la griglia delle strade romane è ancora la struttura di base del centro storico. Vedi anche: Le Marche · Urbino · Gradara.
