Morro d'Alba

Morro d'Alba sits on a hill twelve kilometers northwest of Jesi, one of the Castelli that ring the lower Esino valley. The walled village is built around La Scarpa, the covered ring walkway that runs the full perimeter of the medieval walls; a 1654 municipal decision authorized residents to build dwellings directly onto the fortifications, and those houses still open onto the walkway today, which is why it is covered rather than open like a typical wall-walk. The piazza at the center of the borgo, flanked by the parish church and the town hall, gives onto the stairs that climb to La Scarpa, so the civic life of the village and its defensive ring are joined at a single point of access.

The grape that carries the town's name beyond the valley, Lacrima, was first mentioned in a chronicle the same year Frederick Barbarossa took the castle as his residence during the siege of Ancona, though the vine itself was only recovered as a distinct variety in recent decades. A small hill village, then, whose walls turned into houses and whose grape turned into a wine, both taking centuries to be reclaimed as what they are now known for.