Jesi


Jesi is a comune in the province of Ancona, in the Italian region of Marche.
It is an important industrial and artistic center in the floodplain on the left bank of the Esino river, before its mouth on the Adriatic Sea.

History

Jesi was one of the last towns of the Umbri when, in the 4th century BC, the Senones Gauls invaded the area and ousted them. They turned it into a stronghold against the Piceni. In 283 BC the Senones were defeated by the Romans. Jesi in 247 BC became a colonia civium romanorum with the name of Aesis.
During the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Jesi was ravaged by the troops of Odoacer and again in 493 by the Ostrogoths of Theodoric the Great. After the Gothic War, Italy became part of the Byzantine Empire, and Jesi became one of the main centers of the new rulers, and a diocese seat. In 751 it was sacked by the Lombard troops of Aistulf, and later was a Carolingian imperial city.
Since 1130, it was an independent commune, gradually expanding its control over its surrounding agrarian region. In December 1194 the future Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was born here: he later made Jesi a "Royal City". In the 14th century it was captured by the Papal vicar Filippo Simonetti, then by Galeotto I Malatesta, by Braccio da Montone in 1408, and by Francesco I Sforza, who turned it into his family's main stronghold in the Marche. In 1447 Jesi was bought by the Papal States.
From the Reformation to the Napoleonic invasions, the city was effectively governed by a civic nobility, an urban patriciate that enjoyed broad jurisdictional autonomy over local justice and administration.

Main sights

Religious buildings

  • : duomo built in the 13th-15th centuries. The façade and the Latin cross interior are modern.
  • San Floriano: 18th century convent.
  • San Marco: Gothic, 13th-century church just outside the old city centre. The interior has a nave and two aisles, with a 14th-century fresco by an anonymous Rimini painter.
  • Santa Maria delle Grazie: 15th-century church with 17th-century belltower.
  • San Nicolò: 13th-century church with Romanesque apse and a Gothic portal.

Secular buildings

Notable people

International relations

Jesi is twinned with:
Birzeit,palestine