Quarta di copertina

“A walk through the streets of Ascoli’s old town is like browsing, randomly, through a book of Art History, and having the good fortune to meet the illustrations within the most representative expressions of the various periods of Italian Art.” (JEAN-PAUL SARTRE) When walking through the city centre, you get the overwhelming impression that you are reliving through pages of history, long-forgotten elsewhere. As a matter of fact, there hardly exists one single street, “rua” (“side lane”) or square having at least one remain bearing witness to a past of noble history and fine arts. Every single historical period, from the Romanic to the Medieval, the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Neoclassic, is here represented to its very highest and has left here its own unmistakable print. But the most important thing is the admirable fact that our small town has been able to merge themes and styles from various epochs into one unique harmonious and enchanting artistic ensemble, to the point that it has been recently defined as the “Museum of Italian minor architecture”.