Cingoli

A windy walled town built on a hill that receives the last rays of the sun when all around is in shadow; "non e' ancor notte a Cingoli", (it's not yet night at Cingoli) goes a popular Marche saying, meaning, "don't count your chickens before they're hatched".
The place has also earned the title "the Balcony of the Marche" for its sweeping panoramas - the best views are from behind the church of San Francesco. Climb up Corso Garibaldi to Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, once the forum of Roman Cingulum and still the heart of this stone-built town.
To one side stands a fine 16thC Renaissance town hall with a much earlier clock tower. Inside is the smart, newly arranged Museo Archeologico with interesting Bronze Age lumber - to see the collection call at the library (Biblioteca comunale) in Via Mazzini 1.
The library also houses the town's Pinacoteca, or art gallery, with another of the region's serendipity collections of paintings by Lorenzo Lotto, this time a splendid Madonna of the Rosary.
Cingoli's brief moment of glory came with the one-year papacy of its son, Pius VIII, in 1829; it was he who ordered a new facade for the late baroque Cathedral on the main piazza, never finished due to his early death. Behind the town hall is hushed Via del Podesta', Cingoli's most atmospheric street.