B&B Iris, Ascoli Piceno

B&B Iris: location

Piazza San Gregorio opens toward Via Tornasacco, the street that follows the line of an ancient Roman «strata» (road). The historian Andreantonelli records an inscription stating that Emperor Titus, in memory of his daughter Vesta Celerina, had a portico raised for the goddesses of Ascoli; later Pope Gregory the Great encouraged the temple's conversion to Christian worship, to prevent pagan buildings from being stripped.

What to see near B&B Iris

Also in the historic center, in the square of the same name, the convent attached to the Romanesque church of San Tommaso has housed the Museum of Ceramic Art (ceramics museum) since 2007. Alongside porcelain and majolica from the best-known European kilns, it displays 18th- and 19th-century pieces from the Manifattura Paci of Ascoli, decorated with landscapes or the typical «rosa ascolana» (Ascoli rose); a workshop with kilns lets visitors try decorating.

The center also preserves many noble towers: tradition has it that Frederick II had ninety-one of them torn down in 1242, and some fifty still stand today. The Torre degli Ercolani, about 35 meters high, is flanked by a small Romanesque palazzo known as «longobardo», with elegant mullioned windows; the Torre di San Venanzio, by contrast, was turned into the bell tower of the church of the same name and keeps the double cornice of pierced blocks at its top.