The town is placed on a hill at 237 meters above the sea level. City of art and seaside town, it stands out for its sweet and scenic landscapes drifting to the Adriatic sea, where Porto Potenza is located.
The town, embellished with the rural villages of San Girio and Montecanepino, counts more than 16.000 citizens and is located right in the center of the Marche region, in the county of Macerata.
During the period of the medieval city-republic its name was Monte Santo, due to the good 27 churches located within the historical center, but soon after the Unification of Italy (1862) to Potenza, name recovered from the adjacent ancient Roman town of Potentia, was added the adjective Picena, to ideally connect to the Piceni, the protohistoric local population. The most ancient news regarding the town dates back to 947 AC and proves the existence of Saint Stephen Parish Church, destroyed in 1796 and coinciding to today’s Matteotti Square, the town main square.
The municipal building, probably dating back to 1199, was rebuilt between 1745 and 1750 following the drawings of the Ticinese architect Pietro Bernasconi, who was Luigi Vanvitelli’s associate.
In the municipal building’s town committee’s room are displayed some paintings such as “Madonna with Child between Saint Martin and Rocco”(1584) of Simone de Magistris, “Allegory of Peace” (XVIII Century) of Corrado Giaquinto and Saint Emidio (1770) of Benedetto Biancolini.
During the years from 1856 to 1862, thanks to the own initiative of a committee of some town nobles the theatre was built, today named after the musician Bruno Mugellini, using some parts of the municipal building.
Designed by Giuseppe Brandolini, the theatre counts a parterre with two tiers of boxes plus the gallery, for a total of 152 seats and it stands out for the ancient curtain of unknown artist (XVIII century) dedicated to the goddess Minerva.
Placed like spokes in Matteotti Square, we find the crenellated Palazzo del Podestà, the Civic Tower and the buildings of some of the town’s most important families, such as Buonaccorsi, Manefoschi, Carradori and Mazzagalli.
The Pincio, considered to be one the Region’s most enchanting panoramic view point, looks out onto the North side of the town.
A few km from Porto Potenza, going towards Montecanepino, there is Villa Buonaccorsi, dating back to the XIV century, extended and later renewed between 1745 and 1750 by the architect Pietro Bernasconi, pupil of Luigi Vanvitelli’s School. The Villa’s true jewel is the beautiful eighteenthcentury “Italian-Style” garden, divided into five terraces linked together by a big and central stairway and protected by a dense copse.
Rare plants, fountains, water games, recesses, obelisks portraying human subjects and grotesque and mythological representations of Venetian School.
The Villa is destination of countless tourists and in summer time plenty of theatre and music show are organized.