Le Marche Tradition

Although Le Marche borders Umbria, and is within easy reach of Tuscany and the capital city of Rome, it maintains a very strong sense of its own identity. People have lived on this fertile landscape since at least 6000BCE, thousands of years before the Etruscans. Via the port of Ancona, they established links with the Ancient Greeks, and later the Gauls. Two-and-a-half millennia later, a Gallic influence is still apparent in the dialects spoken in the north.

Ancona became the gateway through which Christianity entered Italy, paving the way for battles for control of the region during the Renaissance. This era saw huge fluctuations in power between the ruling families.