Set in a rural landscape of which orchards and vineyards are distinctive features, the Medieval village of Montefiore Aso preserves fragments of walls with gates and towers dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Porta Aspromonte is the gate into the old town, leading to Piazza della Repubblica with the collegiate church of Saint Lucia, which for years was home to the polyptych painted by Carlo Crivelli for the church of San Francesco, now on display in the San Francesco museum complex.

Near the San Francesco tower, the Polo Museale di San Francesco complex is housed in one of the oldest Franciscan convents of the Marche, and is home to very different collections from various cultural and artistic disciplines, sharing a close bond with the territory of Montefiore Aso and its people.

The museum, organized around the convent cloister, starts with the Centro di Documentazione Scenografica “G. Basili”, exhibiting stage sets created by the stage designer Giancarlo Basili, a native of Montefiore Aso. The documentation centre leads to the Museo della Civiltà Contadina, with about 400 items related to rural domestic and work life, and the “Domenico Cantatore” collection. The pride of the museum is the polyptych  painted by Carlo Crivelli in 1472.

The last wing of the complex houses the Adolfo De Carolis room, home to about 500 works by the artist born in Montefiore Aso.

Annexed to the former convent is the church of San Francesco, built in the Gothic style between 1250 and 1310, and home to a fourteenth-century fresco cycle.

Leaving via Porta San Francesco, visitors should ensure they take in the Belvedere De Carolis to enjoy one of the most picturesque views of the sea and the Aso valley.

Before we go, outside the town centre, the church of San Filippo Neri, built in the late seventeenth century over a small church dated 1573, named Santa Maria del Monte.