San Severino Marche was the crossroads for artists and merchants on an important communication route that connected the Adriatic Sea to the Flaminia. It was a lively place in the medieval and Renaissance periods as the collection in the Civic Picture Gallery testifies. The gallery was set up after the religious orders were dissolved (1866) and has been located in the Padre Tacchi Venturi Renaissance palace since 1974. Padre Tacchi Venturi from San Severino was a famous scholar of the history of religion. The picture gallery is on the first floor of the building and the works, dating from the XIV to the XVII centuries, are displayed in chronological order in six rooms. The first room recounts the civil and religious history of the town and is dominated by a painting of a Madonna dell’Umiltà by Allegreto Nuzi, a painter from Fabriano. Next to this is an unusual polyptych by Paolo Veneziano which proves the close relations between the inland area of the Marche and Venetian culture. While the ’signoria’ (seigniory) of the Smeducci family was taking an increasingly strong hold over the town, its artistic life was under the sway of the flowery style of the late Gothic. This is evident in the third room where the works of the Salimbeni brothers, Lorenzo and Jacopo, are to be found. The renewal they brought to the art of the Marche in the XV century had an international flavour and can also be admired in the extraordinary monochromes in the crypt of San Lorenzo Dolìolo. The last rooms tell of the triumphs of San Severino in the Renaissance. In addition to the works by Lorenzo d’Alessandro and a polyptych by two artists, Domenico Indivini (carpentry work) and Vittore Crivelli (paintings) there are also some works from Umbria: a polyptych by Alunno, four works by Bernardino di Mariotto and the Madonna della Pace by Bernardino Pintoricchio.