Today the ex-church houses the city museum (Museo Comunale); it stands within the city walls in a place known as Castelvecchio (old castle) that was once the residence of the Olivi and Fortebracci families. Built in the 1300s, the church has the simple design of the orders of poor friars, with a single aisle, a roof truss and a polygonal apse. The real value of the ex-church is due to the exquisite frescoes still preserved there. They were painted in the 1400s by various artists that worked in the town on commission of the ruling Fortebracci family.

Of the frescoes, particularly significant are the following:  those with scenes from the life of St Frances (scene di Vita di S. Francesco); the one showing the Last Judgement (Giudizio Universale),  painted by Antonio Alberti between 1423 and 1424; and the one depicting St Anthony of Padua (S. Antonio da Padova)  standing between John the Baptist (Giovanni Battista) and the archangel Gabriel (Archangelo Gabriele), painted by Bartolomeo Caporali in 1491.

According to historical sources, beginning in 1308 and later during works to expand the building in the 1500s, the convent was annexed to the church (now also part of the city museum).

In the 1700s a fire as well as an invasion by Napoleon caused extensive damage to the complex; it was salvaged and restructured in the 19^th century when it became property of the state under control of the newly-formed Italian State.

Not far from Piazza Fortebracci, center of the small town of Montone, is the city museum (Museo Comunale), which occupies the ex-religious complex comprised of church and convent dedicated to St Frances. The museum opened in 1995 and is divided into two parts: one inside what used to be the 14^th century church and the other in rooms that were part of the annexed convent.

Some of the original furnishings have been restored in the old church part. Worth noting is the embellished door created in 1519 by Antonio Bencivenni from Mercatello; the wood choir stalls from the 15^th century; the exquisite magistrates pew (bancone dei Magistrati), a masterful work by the head guardian of the convent Stefano Cambi, who carved the wooden pew in 1505 with Roman ‘grotesque’ decorations that were popular at that time following the discovery of Emperor Nero’s home the Domus Aurea.

The rooms of the ex-convent are now used for the city art gallery (Pinacoteca Comunale) with exhibits of paintings, sculptures and furnishings from various churches in town, a collection put together when all ecclesiastical assets were confiscated by the newly-formed Italian State in 1860. The most important pieces are the banner of the Madonna della Misericordia (Our Lady of Mercy) from 1482 made by Bartolomeo Caporali,  the wooden figures of the Deposizione (witnesses) – four remaining figures from a composition that must have been much larger that came from the old St Gregory’s church and which are dated to 1260-70,  the Immacolata (immaculate-free from sin) painted by Cirelli in 1551, and the Annunciazione (annunciation) by Cirelli and Papacello (Tommaso of Archangelo) in 1532.

A series of religious gold items and valuable linens completes the collection, in particular the six richly embroidered “tovaglie perugine” (tablecloths from Perugia), in cotton and linen with the characteristic blue and white decorations from the 15^th-18^th centuries.

Several pieces that were once part of the museum in Montone were lost during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Worth remembering among these is a painting that Luca Signorelli did in 1515 for the Cappella de Rutanis (Rutanis chapel); today it can be seen in the National Gallery in London. Also the composition of the Madonna and Saints created by Berto di Giovanni in 1507 for the high altar, today shared between Raffaello’s house in Urbino and Buckingham Palace in London.

In the upper part of the town next to the Fortebracci fortress tower, stands the church of St Maria Assunta.  Its appearance today is the result of expansion works carried out in the 1600s on the ruins of an earlier small church built around 1317.

The first church was dedicated to S. Maria Assunta (St Mary risen to heaven) and it had no apse or lateral chapels. In the 1600s, for the people’s convenience, the old St Gregory’s church outside the city walls was replaced by the little church in town, thereafter becoming the main parish church with the privilege of becoming the Bishop’s Seat and Collegiate of Clergymen. From then on, the church has been known as St Gregory’s Church and Collegiate (Chiesa di S. Gregorio e Collegiate).

The church has one main aisle with a semicircular apse in a Latin cross layout. Inside are valuable frescoes, paintings and works of art.

Between the wooden coffered ceiling and frame, above the entire aisle, are frescoes depicting scenes from the life of the Madonna from her birth to the visit from Elizabeth, attributed to painters of the Florentine Academy. The side chapels are richly decorated, the most important one being the one called Cappella delle Suore (the nuns’ chapel) to the left of the apse, so called because it is adjacent to the convent of the Poor Clares (Clarisse order), guardians of the Sacred Thorn (Sacra Spina). According to tradition, Carlo, a son of the Fortebracci, gave the religious relic (a thorn from Jesus’ crown of thorns) to the people of Montone after it was given to him by the Venetians in gratitude for his helping them defeat the Turks. In the same chapel on the wooden gold-painted altar, is the Pazzaglia family crest, one of whose members, Father Giovanni Pazzaglia, of the Filipino Order, promoted and financed the expansion works of the church in the 1700s.

About six kilometers from the town, in an area a bit difficult to reach unless you are a trekking enthusiast, is a stronghold sitting in a high strategic position – the Rocca d’Aries. The origin of its name is uncertain; some believe it is linked to the Persian name Dario, others to the name Darete, mythical companion of Aeneas, others hold that it is from the Latin name ariete, which means ram (montone in Italian), and could come from the name of the town itself.

What is certain is that it is quite ancient, dating most likely to the 6^th or 7^th century, the Longobard period, and was the first stronghold the Fortebracci family built, who then went on to build the foundations of the entire hamlet and the fortified tower in town called Rocca di Montone or di Braccio.

The two fortresses must have been very similar if not identical, but they had different fates. In fact, the Rocca d’Aries has retained its original rectangular shape, the defense walls, the round tower on one side and the various modifications carried out to make it a dwelling; the central fortified tower, however, is the only remaining part of the stronghold in the village. According to reliable sources, the fort was completely destroyed during three days and three nights in 1478 by a group of five thousand men known as Terrazzani (guastatori or destroyers) sent by Pope Sixtus IV, tired of the constant attacks by Carlo Fortebracci on territories belonging to the Papal State.

The Rocca d’Aries became a possession of the region in 1991.

About 8 kilometers from the town of  Montone, in the luxuriant vegetation of the Pietralunga forest in the Carpina Valley, is a small hamlet called Coloti. Abandoned in the 1960s, it has been brought back to life more recently thanks to a project to build an observatory there (Osservatorio Astronomico).

Financed by the European Economic Community in 1995, the Umbria region began a project to build an observatory and chose this spot as the ideal place for it because of the clean air and absence of any light pollution in the valley.

The project, completed in 2000, made it possible to build one of the most advanced observatories in Italy that works on a system of automatic functions (it does not require a human’s presence during the night).

The observatory outside Coloti is a large structure today, having twelve rooms, eight of which are open to the public, plus the ex-church of the hamlet dedicated to St Lorenzo now used for meeting rooms and a modern wing called ‘Sirio’, where there are things for your entertainment and a caffè. It is all surmounted by the large seven-meter diameter dome with its telescope.

In the heart of the small town of Montone are the Biblioteca Comunale and the Archivio Storico (city library and town history archives) in the ex-Santa Caterina D’Alessandria Benedictine convent that has been restored.

It appears that the fortified mountaintop village of Montone was destroyed in a punitive attack ordered by Pope Sixtus IV to punish Carlo, son of Braccio.  Only the tower remains today. The town was replaced in later centuries by the St. Catherine Benedictine convent as a statement of the power and position that the Church retained in opposition to the Fortebracci family. The convent rooms became public in modern times and today they are where local culture and history are proudly preserved.

The library, opened in 1999, is divided into two rooms – one for consulting and one for reading – and is equipped with modern multimedia technology.

The city history archives are one of the best in Umbria due to the valuable documents they contain. The “Acta Consilii,” very old papers from the judiciary and notaries offices and two papal seals with the crest of Pope Martin V, were documents that excommunicated Braccio Fortebracci.