Fortunato Duranti Civic Art Gallery in Montefortino

History of the Fortunato Duranti Civic Art Gallery

Fortunato Duranti, born in Montefortino in 1787 and died in 1863, was a painter, collector and antiquarian. In the 19th century he donated his collection to the town. Montefortino thus came to own the first public art gallery in the Marche, very early compared with the birth of Italian civic museums. Over time, losses and dispersals drastically reduced the original collection.

The gallery is housed in Palazzo Leopardi, a 16th-century building commissioned by a cadet branch of the Leopardi family of Recanati. The patron was Ser Desiderio Leopardi, who drafted the municipal laws of Montefortino. He chose the palazzo as the temporary residence of the bishops of Fermo during their pastoral visits. The Leopardi family lived there until 1800, when the building was bought by the Duranti family and later donated to the town. The gallery has been in this palazzo since 1996.

What to see in the Fortunato Duranti Civic Art Gallery

The gallery occupies the third floor of the palazzo, the former piano nobile, and is laid out in nine rooms. The collection includes paintings, sculptures, drawings and applied arts, with works ranging from the 14th to the 19th century.

Among the most important pieces are:

• three panels from a dismembered polyptych by Pietro Alemanno, with Saint Lucy, the Madonna and Child with saints, and Christ in the sarcophagus;
• the altarpiece of the Madonna enthroned between the archangels Michael and Raphael, by Pier Francesco Fiorentino, dated 1497;
• a wooden cross by Jacobello di Bonomo;
• Perugino's Christ of the Passion;
• sketches and a work by Corrado Giaquinto, the Sorceress (la Maga);
• canvases and monochromes by Cristoforo Unterperger.

The museum also holds about a hundred drawings by Duranti, shown in rotation in the display cases of the central hall.

Two other collections are housed in the same palazzo. On the fourth floor, the Museum of Sacred Art, set up in 2000, holds vestments, furnishings and wooden statues. Among them is the 14th-century Madonna Enthroned with Child known as the "Madonna del Girone". The second floor houses the Sibillini wildlife museum, with the collection of mammals and birds of Ignazio Rossi Brunori.

How to visit the Fortunato Duranti Civic Art Gallery

After the 2016 earthquake the museum complex remained closed for a long time. A reopening has been announced, but without a date. In 2025 the palazzo was opened on an exceptional basis for the FAI Spring Days (Giornate FAI di Primavera), after about a decade of closure. Before planning a visit, check the opening status through the official channels of the museum and the town.

The project "Il museo di tutti e per tutti" (a museum of everyone and for everyone) introduced a tactile sensory route and a resin reproduction of Perugino's Christ of the Passion.

Where the Fortunato Duranti Civic Art Gallery is located

The gallery is in the historic center of Montefortino, a town in the province of Fermo, in the Marche, at the foot of the Sibillini Mountains. The town stands at 638 m above sea level. As the crow flies it is about 45 km from Fermo, about 35 km from Ascoli Piceno and about 80 km from Ancona. Palazzo Leopardi is part of the town fabric, along the southern side of the village. At the back, a bridge over the street leads to the palazzo garden, below the square of the Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo.

Around the Fortunato Duranti Civic Art Gallery

In Montefortino the visit can be combined with the Piccolo Museo della Lana (a small wool museum), in the same municipality. The town borders Amandola, home to the MU6 Amandola and the Museo del Paesaggio. Montefortino also borders Sarnano, Montemonaco, Bolognola, Ussita, Visso and Castelsantangelo sul Nera. The other museums of the area are listed on the Sibillini Mountains museums page.