Provincia di Pesaro e Urbino
The 1861-1865 acts were compiled by parish
Pesaro e Urbino has two short, precise civil holdings and a census in between. The Napoleonic registers, 1808-1813, were compiled by the communal offices of the Pesaro district. The registers for 1861-1865 were compiled on a parish basis — the church doing the state's work in the first years after annexation. Between them sits the papal population census of 1853-1857, incomplete but household by household.
Your roots
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Comuni in Provincia di Pesaro e Urbino
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Where the records are
What Archivio di Stato di Pesaro Urbino holds
Three holdings, each tightly defined.
The Stato civile of the Napoleonic period: birth, marriage and death registers compiled by the communal offices of the Pesaro district from 1808 to 1813.
Registers of the same kind compiled on a parish basis from 1861 to 1865. This is the bridge across annexation: the Marche joined the Kingdom in 1860, general Italian civil registration began in 1866, and in between the parish did the work. Ask for these under the parish rather than expecting a civil series.
The population census taken under the Papal State, 1853-1857, held here though incomplete. Because a census records households rather than events, it can place a whole family in one place at one moment and is often the fastest way to establish relationships.
Levy records are long and have documented gaps. Extraction and then levy lists for the circondari of Pesaro — classes from 1855, with gaps in the early years — and Urbino, classes 1839-1909. After a gap for 1917-1920 the series resumes for the comuni of the province to 1950.
Ruoli matricolari for the distretto di Pesaro cover classes 1839-1885 and 1914-1940, with alphabetical registers; fogli matricolari cover classes 1886-1920. Some of the earlier fogli came from the Archivio di Stato di Ancona in 2016, together with rolls of men transferred from the Navy to the Army, 1901-1913.
All three holdings are marked Completa for digitisation.
Continue your research
The 1861-65 registers are parish-compiled, and the papal census of 1853-57 is a household record.
Archivio di Stato di Pesaro Urbino on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its three holdings and the recorded levy gaps.
antenati.cultura.gov.itPortale Antenati archive directory
Every participating State Archive and what each says it holds.
antenati.cultura.gov.itAn archive record and an online family tree will often disagree. Why family trees disagree, and what settles it →
Your roots
Three windows, three kinds of document
Each window here is a different sort of record, produced by a different body, and asking for the wrong kind wastes the enquiry.
1808-1813: birth, marriage and death registers compiled by the communal offices of the Pesaro district under Napoleonic administration. Civil in form, communal in origin, and narrow in time.
1853-1857: the population census taken under the Papal State, held here though incomplete. A census is a household snapshot — everyone under one roof, with ages and relationships — which answers questions no single birth act can.
1861-1865: registers compiled on a parish basis. The Marche were annexed in 1860 and Italian civil registration only became general in 1866, so for these five years the parish registered and the books are here.
That leaves the long papal stretch from 1814 to 1852 and the gap from 1858 to 1860 to the parish and diocesan archives, which is where most nineteenth-century work in this province is done.
The province
Urbino, the papal Marche and a province from 1860
SIAS records the Province of Pesaro e Urbino from 1860, instituted by decree no. 4495 of 22 December 1860, after the Marche were annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia.
The province joins two very different histories. Pesaro is an Adriatic town, part of the papal Legation of Urbino and Pesaro, with a coastal and commercial character. Urbino, inland on its hill, was the capital of a duchy that under Federico da Montefeltro in the fifteenth century became one of the most brilliant courts in Europe — the Palazzo Ducale, Piero della Francesca, Raphael born there in 1483. The duchy passed to the papacy in 1631, and Urbino declined into a provincial university town while Pesaro grew.
The Montefeltro, the upland north-west around Carpegna, Macerata Feltria and Sant'Agata Feltria, is a third territory again — and a mobile one. Several of its comuni were in the Napoleonic Dipartimento del Rubicone, administered from Forli; and in 2009 seven comuni of the Alta Valmarecchia, including Casteldelci, Maiolo, Pennabilli and Sant'Agata Feltria, were transferred from this province to Rimini, moving from the Marche into Emilia-Romagna.
So a Montefeltro family may have records catalogued under Forli for the Napoleonic years, under Pesaro-Urbino for the century after, and under Rimini today.
Culture & traditions
Coast, Montefeltro and the ducal hill
The province stacks a working coast, a court city and a mountain district into a small space.
The coast — Pesaro, Fano, Gabicce — is Adriatic: fishing, boatbuilding, and from the nineteenth century bathing. Pesaro was Rossini's birthplace in 1792 and has made that a civic identity; it also had a significant majolica industry, and Urbino and Casteldurante — now Urbania — produced istoriato wares that were exported across Europe in the sixteenth century.
Urbino is a university town — the university was founded in 1506 — and its records include a floating student population.
The Montefeltro is upland pasture and forest, with a long transhumance and a scatter of small castled comuni: Carpegna, Frontino, Piandimeleto, Macerata Feltria. The Carpegna family held it before the Montefeltro did, and prosciutto di Carpegna is its modern export.
The Metauro and Cesano valleys running down to the sea are the agricultural spine, with Fossombrone, Cagli and Pergola as their market towns; the Furlo gorge on the Via Flaminia carries a Roman tunnel of AD 76.
Emigration from the inland comuni after 1880 went to the Americas, and after 1950 heavily to the coastal towns and to the furniture district around Pesaro.
Province established
1860
Comuni covered
50
Historic names
Ducato di Urbino · Legazione di Urbino e Pesaro · Montefeltro · Dipartimento del Rubicone · Alta Valmarecchia (to Rimini, 2009)
Languages & dialects
Italian · Gallo-Piceno · Montefeltrino · Romagnol influence in the north
Traditions
Urbino's ducal court and university · Pesaro majolica and Rossini · Carpegna prosciutto · Montefeltro transhumance · the Furlo pass
SIAS records the Province of Pesaro e Urbino from 1860 and states that it was instituted by decree no. 4495 of 22 December 1860.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Pesaro
Match the period to the kind of record. 1808-1813 communal, 1853-1857 census, 1861-1865 parish. Asking for a civil register in 1863 will not work; asking for the parish series will.
For the long papal stretch from 1814, the diocesan and parish archives are the route.
If the comune is in the Alta Valmarecchia and now in Rimini, check here for anything before 2009 — and check Forli-Cesena for the Napoleonic years, since several of those comuni were in the Dipartimento del Rubicone.
For military records, note the recorded gaps: classes 1917-1920 are missing from the levy series. Say which window you need when you write.
What to see
Urbino — Federico da Montefeltro's palace, and Raphael's birthplace.
Pesaro — Rossini's town, and its majolica tradition.
The Montefeltro — Carpegna, Frontino and Piandimeleto, upland castled comuni.
Urbania — Casteldurante, where the istoriato wares were made.
The Furlo gorge — the Roman tunnel of AD 76 on the Via Flaminia.
Fano — the Adriatic town at the end of the Flaminia, with its Augustan arch.
Not yet in the collection
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