Explore Ancona

Santa Maria della Piazza is a Romanesque church near the port of Ancona, built in the late 12th century over earlier Christian churches whose remains date back to the 5th and 6th centuries. Its façade, signed by Master Filippo in 1210, is covered with rows of small blind arches and carved figures. Glass panels in the floor show the mosaic pavements of the older buildings.

Ancona Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Cyriacus, stands on the Guasco hill above the port, on the site of a Greek temple and a 6th-century basilica. Enlarged between the 11th and 13th centuries into a Greek-cross church, it mixes Romanesque, Byzantine and Gothic forms; two columns of its porch rest on stone lions. Remains of the earlier buildings lie under glass.