Back to Trip
Report Index Page list at
bottom of page

San Leo

After visiting San Marino, Alizia and Roberto brought us to nearby San Leo which lies a bit west and south of San Marino. A settlement has existed here since pre-Roman times, and was eventually called Montefeltro. According to a history written in the year 900, Saint Leo and Saint Marino came to Italy around the year 600 to escape persecution back in Croatia. Saint Marino established San Marino, and Saint Leone settled in Montefeltro.

In the year 1000 the village was renamed to San Leo in his honor.

After finding a parking spot, we walked into the old city center and one of the first things we saw was the Parish Church of Santa Maria Assunta. This church was built in 882, although some elements within it are reused from even older buildings. It was partially rebuilt a couple of hundred years after that. This is definitely one of the oldest buildings we have been in.

A stone plaza with a stone fountain and a stone church. The sky is gray and cloudy.

There was one long row of pews down the center of the church.

Anne can be seen in a wooden pew, with stone columns on each side, and an altar that is on a platform at the end of the church.

The church had a small traditional looking organ in the back.

A stone archway with a black grated fence across the bottom half. Through the archway silver organ pipes can be seen and a dark wood organ.

Across a stone and grass yard is another church, Cathedral of San Leo. Although it was built around 1200, it is at the site of an even earlier church that dates from the 600s and the arrival of San Leo. Parts of the earlier church are incorporated into the current church. The Cathedral complex includes this cathedral and the Parish Church of Santa Maria Assunta (pictured above), and once had a few other buildings.

A large stone church, with the entrance on the left end.

Looking down an aisle between two rows of church pews, with tall columns on each side. A small altar is in front, with a larger alter on a raised level that also has a large figure of Christ on a cross.

The cathedral, as indeed most buildings in San Leo, does not have a foundation but instead is built directly on the rock. They celebrate this by making the bedrock obvious within the architectural design.

A tree-shaped candle holder is on the left, and the base of a column is on the right. Around the base of the column and between slightly offset levels the bedrock can be seen..

Looking back from the upper level of the church gives a good perspective, and also shows an organ from 1964 at the back of the church. While many places in Italy like to juxtapose modern and ancient, we are not confident that this particular design goes well with this church's decor.

Take from an elevated height, this picture looks back down the church. Pillars on each side support a very high ceiling.

An angular organ with light colored wood.

The church has a lower crypt level. The large signs in this area are simply diagrams of the church.

Roberto is looking at a sign in an area with a lower ceiling, still with arches. And alter is seen at the far end with 3 windows.

Interestingly, only the lid of Saint Leo's tomb is here. The saint's remains actually reside in another community (Voghenza, about 2.5 hours away).

The lid to a tomb with a picture of San Leo on a stand near it. There is some writing inscribed into the lid.

When we stood between the two churches, looking east showed the Fortress of San Leo standing imposingly on the cliff above the village.

The stone wall of the Cathedral is on the left, the stone Parish Church is on the right, and there is a small stone building in the center. Behind this, high on a hill, is a very large stone fort castle with brooding clouds in the sky.

Looking towards the west shows a more mountainous landscape.

Rays of light stream from an opening in the clouds and land behind the ridge of a mountainside. There are a few peaks visible. A few rooftops can be seen in the foreground at the bottom of the picture.

Above, we mentioned that San Leo was once known as Montefeltro (which would translate to 'felt mountain'). An informative sign in the village explained that after the name was changed, a prominent family adopted the name. This family became one of the two most prominent dynasties in the area, the other being the Malatesta family of Rimini. In the 1400s Federico Montefeltro defeated the Malatesta and became the Duke of Urbino. We have seen many villages with forts created with funding from either the Montefeltro family or the Malatesta family. The Fortress of San Leo was modified to its current appearance by Federico. In honor of the 600th anniversary of Federico's birth this mural was painted on a wall next to the piazza that bears his name.

On a tan wall is a drawing of a man in profile. He wears a red hat and jacket, ahs short dark hair, and an oddly steep nose.

To get to the fortress, we had to walk up the hill. Fortunately, they had a nice path. When we got to the top we felt that the fort was as imposing up close as it was from below.

Anne is standing next to a short stone wall with the fortress behind her. A large tower is next to an entrance that has a grate door. The land falls off to the right, behind the short wall.

The fort has walls within walls. After we went through the entrance, we found ourselves in an outer courtyard. We could go through the small door on the left to be within the wall, or through the archway on the right to go to the inner courtyard.

A mountain is on the left in the distance. A raised walkway leads away from you, and a lower plaza is on the right. Anne and Roberto are in the plaza, standing in front of a tall stone wall. The even taller walls of the fort are on the right.

We opted for the door on the left. This led us to some embrasures (spots with loopholes, aka shooting holes) at various levels.

Anne and Roberto walk down a steep set of narrow stone steps with a relatively low ceiling.

An upside-down keyhole shaped opening in a recessed area of a wall.

The views are suitably impressive from the fort. The village can be seen far below. The tower is known as The Roman Tower. To the left of the tower is the Cathedral of San Leo, and moving left again you see the Parish Church of Santa Maria Assunta. Going back to the tower and looking right, you can see a park with a monument at the end; that is the monument to those who have died in wars.

Photo taken over a brick wall, with a stone tower on the left. A village can be seen immediately below, with agricultural land and low mountains in the distance.

Looking East, the village of San Marino is visible. (The picture at the beginning of the San Marino page was actually taken from San Leo.)

Taken over a brick topped stone wall, agricultural land on hills can be seen leading to San Marino.

The towers have rooms at their tops, with some displays along the walls. These rooms are also available to host meetings, based on the number of chairs we saw.

A window is in the center, with a suit of armor on each side and a rack of 5 pikes directly in front of the window.

As we showed in the Cathedral below, the bedrock is part of the building.

The fort rises many stories above the plaza. The bottom part of the fort is stone on the left but raw bedrock on the right.

Admission to the fort included a very interesting 'interactive museum' display, which they call MusLeo. A famous Italian actor narrates the story while corresponding shadow images are shown on the walls. Fortunately, the images also included text in English and German. We do not know why, but a black cat is the symbol of the interactive museum and was used in many of the shadow images.

An interior room with a fireplace, plain walls, wood ceiling and shuttered window. It is dark. An artificial fire is on in the fireplace. On the wall is projected an image of a cat on a tree branch and a bird on another branch. Text reads 'He spoke so well that even the birds'.

The story told us about Dante, who stayed at the fort and used it as the imagery for purgatory. It told us about Saint Francis, who visited and preached here. The saint impressed one of the local nobles so much that the nobleman donated land to the saint, where eventually the Sanctuary of La Verna was established. And the story told us about Alessandro Cagliostro. Cagliostro was actually Giuseppe Balsamo, a poor but educated con man who convinced many people that he was actually a nobleman and physician. It is said that he put some of his swindled funds to good use for the aid of children, since he was orphaned at a young age. He was eventually convicted for various crimes and imprisoned in the fortress. Since Cagliostro was a magician, among other things, it was feared that he would be able to escape. He was put in a room with no door, only a hole in the ceiling. This small room had one window, covered with bars, that provided a very limited view of the outdoors. He arrived at the fortress in 1791 and died in 1795. A doorway entrance has since been made in the room, so we were able to go into it.

A small stone room with Roberto partially seen on the right. A small door leads to a very steep set of stairs. There is a low wooden platform on the left with a few artificial flowers on it. In the ceiling is a square wooden opening.

A window in a very thick wall. There are 3 sets of grates that are embedded into the stone. Through the window is a narrow view of the village and countryside far below.

The fortress also had a torture area (which, as far as we know, Cagliostro was not subjected to). Roberto demonstrates the board where a prisoner might have his hands tied up, and Alizia shows how the heavy stone could keep a person from walking very far.

Roberto, wearing jeans and a black leather jacket, has his hands spread in the air against a wooden board that is embeded into the stone wall.

Alizia has a chain around her ankle, with the chain leading to a heavy stone at the other end. She is in a room of stone.

Here is another view of the fort, taken from one of the courtyards. A bit right of center is a slanted wall that is actually a staircase. The subsequent photo shows Anne, Alizia, and Roberto stnading near those stairs; you can see that it is a very high wall.

The stone fortress, perhaps 6 stories tall, has a couple of square towers protruding from the side towards us. A mountain can be seen in the distance. The sky is cloudy and gray.

A tall stone wall is on the left, and a stone round building which is the top of a tower is on the right. Three people are in the center, and look small against the buildings.

Before leaving Paul took this video.

After our tour of the fortress, we walked back down to the village of San Leo. The day was fading and lights were starting to come on. Here we look past the Parish Church of Santa Maria Assunta back up towards the fortress.

Looking across a coblestone walkway up stairs that use the same stone. In the distance at a high elevation is the fortress. Closer we see the stone walls of an old church.

As we saw from the elevated height of the fortress, near the churches sits the Roman Tower. Continuing down the path leads to the park and monument that we saw from the fortress. This provided a nice view back at the tower and fortress, but it was very windy.

A stone tower is on the left of this photo, with a partially cloudy dusck sky above it. There is a slight glow from streetlights on the curved stone walkway in the foreground.

description

Three flags on individual flagpoles are straight out due to the wind.

Here is a video that Paul took that can give you an idea how windy it was.

We paused to take a picture from the road on our way out, to capture what the sheer cliff wall side of the fortress looks like. There was not much worry of attack from this side.

A sheer cliff wall with a stone fort on the top. Some soft yellow lights shine on the wall and the fort.

After hosting us for a fabulous day of touring, Alizia and Roberto were kind enough to invite us up to their apartment in Pesaro. They have an amazing view, even at night, out to the nearby natural park and the sea.

Looking out from an upper story, the large dark outline of a high hill is on the left, and on the right is the flatness of the Adriatic Sea. In the forground are some modern looking buildings.

Our 'light' dinner was a variety of greens, green beans and potato, a pomegrante fennel salad, fresh piadini (the local flat bread; Paul and Roberto walked over to the shop to get it immediately before dinner), and various cheeses. We were also able to try Lacrima di Morro d'Alba wine. The lacrima grape is a local grape that is rarely found outside of Morro d'Alba, which of course means that the wine is not easy to find. We are surprised that it has not spread because it went very well with the meal.

A table with a fish tablecloth. There are 4 empty plates, 4 empty wine glasses, 4 empty water glasses, and a pitcher of water. An open bottle of wine is in the center, and there are a few containers with food also on the table. The wall on the right has a bookshelf, while the wall on the left is a glass sliding door.