Urbinum Hortense
# Urbinum Hortense

Urbinum Hortense was an ancient Roman town of central Italy, of uncertain location, mentioned by Pliny the Elder in a roughly alphabetical and contextless list (NH 3.114). Until the mid-20th century, it was sometimes assumed to have been the ancestor of the modern town of Urbino; but that city is on the Metauro River and in the same list Pliny mentions an Urbinum Mataurense, a better fit: most topographers therefore did not make the identification.

In the early 1930s, G. Bizzózero, an amateur archaeologist of Trevi, found ancient remains on a hilltop in Umbria near Collemancio in the comune of Cannara not far from his hometown, and declared them to be the ruins of Urbinum Hortense. There is indeed a rather sizable town on that hill, where excavations have continued sporadically; but its identification is mere surmise, although it has acquired currency by being taken up on widely disseminated tourist and automotive maps of Umbria.

