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Stemma di Carpegna

Marche · Pesaro e Urbino

Carpegna

A Montefeltro mountain town under Monte Carpegna, home of the DOP prosciutto and the seventeenth-century Carpegna family seat.

Known for

  • PROSCIUTTO

    DOP since 1996, cured 16 months minimum on heavy pigs from Lombardy, Emilia and the Marche, in the dry mountain air at 748 meters.

  • PALAZZO CARPEGNA

    Designed by Giovanni Antonio De' Rossi, built 1675-1697 for Cardinal Gaspare di Carpegna, still held by the family that has been here since the Middle Ages.

  • MONTE CARPEGNA

    At 1,415 meters, the Montefeltro's anchor peak; Marco Pantani trained on its road climb, the Cippo Pantani marks the summit.

When to visit

Best · May–Oct

  • J
  • F
  • M
  • A
  • M
  • J
  • J
  • A
  • S
  • O
  • N
  • D
  • Best
  • Hot or crowded
  • Quiet
  • Mostly closed

Why come

The town sits at 748 meters on the southern slope of the peak that anchors the Montefeltro between the Marche, Emilia-Romagna and the Republic of San Marino. That position, mountain above and cured-meat trade below, has held the same shape since the family that governs from the palazzo first took the territory: over a thousand years of continuity on one slope, with the pigs of Lombardy, Emilia and the Marche brought here specifically for the dry air that the altitude provides. The park that surrounds the town extends that same relationship between height and character.

Its beech, hornbeam and oak enclose the ruins of a planned town abandoned in the seventeenth century, a settlement that failed where Carpegna's did not. The mountain, in other words, has been the constant: it gives the air that cures the meat, the slope that the family built on, and the forest that outlasted a rival town founded in its shadow.

The Sunday letter

We haven’t written Carpegna’s letter yet.

One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

Carpegna — photo 1
Carpegna — photo 2

What to see

  • Palazzo dei Principi Carpegna Falconieri

    Designed by Giovanni Antonio De' Rossi for Cardinal Gaspare di Carpegna, built 1675 to the late 1690s, still owned by the descendants of the family. The building survived a fire and the strong 1781 earthquake.

  • Monte Carpegna

    At 1,415 meters, the central peak of the Montefeltro, with summit pastures and a beech-and-hornbeam forest covering the slopes.

  • Parco Interregionale del Sasso Simone e Simoncello

    Cross-border natural park between Marche and Emilia-Romagna, named for the two limestone monoliths that rise from the forest floor. Beech, hornbeam and oak cover the ground between them.

  • Sasso Simone

    Limestone monolith inside the park, with the ruins of the Medici Città del Sole, the planned town founded by Cosimo I in 1565 and abandoned by 1673.

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Living here

  • Population 1,642
  • Off the beaten pathi
  • Pharmacy in town
  • High school within a 30-minute drive
  • Nearest airport Rimini, 1 h 24 min drive
  • Regional capital Ancona, 1 h 59 min drive
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

Recognised as

The numbers

  • Elevation: 748 m
  • Population: 1,642
  • Surface area: 28.94 km²

These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

Close by

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