Recanati is a remarkably attractive small hill town, birthplace of one Italy's greatest poets, Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837).
He had a sad childhood, self-imprisoned in his father's classics-filled library and spent the rest of his life trying to recapture in his pessimistic verse the illusion of happiness, glimpsed fleetingly as a youth in Recanati. Palazzo Leopardi at the southern edge of town, where he was born and brought up, holds memorabilia, manuscripts and a library. Around almost every corner, plaques mark spots referred to in his poems.
Recanati was also famous in the 16th and 17thC for its commercial fair, one of the most important in the Papal States, and its wide streets and comfortable buildings still bear a mercantile character.
Recanati was also the home town of the great tenor, Beniamino Gigli and the Museo Gigli in theTheatre Persiani, houses a collection of his costumes from some 30 operas, a mock-up of his dressing-room and some of the many presents he received, including a walking stick from Verdi.
The new museum in Villa Colloredo-Mels, a splendid 18th century villa on the edge of town, holds Recanati's greatest art treasure, a room with four of Lorenzo Lotto's finest pictures, including a most haunting Annunciation packed with almost breathless narrative detail - a high spot in any art-lover's tour of the central Marche.
posted by Guide Turistiche Marche, servizi visite guidate con guide turistiche abilitate delle province di Ancona, Macerata, Ascoli Piceno, Fermo e della Basilica di Loreto
