Il Palombarone is a 16th-century

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

Castelfidardo Castelfidardo ( Marchigiano: ''Castello'') is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region of central-eastern Italy. It is remembered for a Piedmontese victory over an army composed of foreign volunteers defending the ...

, the

Marches In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a state's "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which diffe ...

in Central

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Structure

The building has three principal sections - a four-storey central portion which is undoubtedly the oldest part of the

structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

, with two-storey wings on either side. Thus in essence the building is a central

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

with lower wings on either side.

History

To the best of common knowledge the building now dubbed the 'Palombarone' was originally erected in 1580 as the summer

residence A residence is a place (normally a building) used as a home or dwelling, where people reside. Residence or The Residence may also refer to: * Domicile (law) In law and conflict of laws, domicile is relevant to an individual's "personal l ...

for the local

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

, also the Governor of the Basilica of the Holy House of nearby Loreto. It was a property of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. It dominated the

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

for miles around due to its elevated position. Its presumed nature as an

ecclesiastical {{Short pages monitor