Visso

Visso sits at 607 meters at the confluence of the Nera and the Ussita, on the Umbrian border in the northern Sibillini. The village is the seat of the Parco Nazionale dei Monti Sibillini and the northern gateway commune to the high ridges. A settlement called Vicus Elacensis stood here in pre-Roman times.

The Piazza dei Martiri Vissani is bordered by elegant fifteenth and sixteenth-century palazzi; the Collegiata di Santa Maria, twelfth century in Romanesque-Gothic form, closes one side with an Annunciation frescoed in the lunette by Paolo da Visso. The former church of Sant'Agostino, fourteenth century, holds the Museo Civico Diocesano with about 200 sacred works and the Leopardi manuscripts: six idylls including one of the two existing copies of L'Infinito, five sonnets, the Epistle to Carlo Pepoli, and fourteen letters from 1825 to 1831. The 2016 earthquakes severely damaged the centro storico; reconstruction is slow and many buildings remain closed.