| Description: |
The frequent reference to an angel, a clear and common feature for many sites and churches of the area, says a lot about the strong marks left here by the Lombards, or Langobards, especially in this small medieval town, where we know for certain of the existence of a district of local government of the Lombard duchy of Spoleto and founded on a former Roman pagus. It depended on the monks of the Farfa Abbey, owned by the local lords. Its intact medieval city walls were in any case erected before 1236, the year in which the village became a self-governing commune. After a short period of domination by the Da Varano from Camerino (1445), was subject to Tolentino first and Fermo later, becoming one of the most important outposts, until Napoleon took over control of the whole area.
It is the native land to the wonder-worker and healer St Nicholas, renamed ‘of Tolentino´ because it was there that he spent his life and was engaged in his pastoral activity in the local Augustinian monastery.
The small town plays host every two year to the ´Premio Città di Sant´Angelo in Pontano´, a cultural event dedicated to contemporary poetry and prose.
Text by Fabio Santilli
Translation by Gianfranco Martorano |