Genga

Genga sits on the Sentino river in the Apennine foothills of the Marche, seven kilometers downstream from Sassoferrato and twelve north of Fabriano. The commune is the ancestral seat of the della Genga, the noble family that gave the Catholic Church Pope Leo XII, born at the Castello della Genga in 1760. The territory is best known for the Grotte di Frasassi, a thirteen-kilometer karst system whose entrance was found in 1971 and opened to visitors in 1974.

The Abisso Ancona, a single chamber roughly 180 by 120 meters and nearly 200 tall, is large enough to hold the Milan cathedral. Above the cave entrance, the Tempio del Valadier, an octagonal neoclassical chapel set into a cliff wall, was commissioned by Leo XII from Giuseppe Valadier in 1828. The Abbazia di San Vittore alle Chiuse, a Romanesque Benedictine church on a Greek-cross plan, stands at the gorge mouth and dates to before 1080.