[7] The fondachi (colonies with warehouses and accommodation buildings[8]) of the Republic of Ancona were continuously active in Constantinople, Alexandria and other Eastern Mediterranean ports, while the sorting of goods imported by land (especially textiles and spices) fell to the merchants of Lucca and Florence.

[10][11] Other Ancona fondachi were in Syria (in Laiazzo and Laodicea), in Romania (in Constanţa), in Egypt (in Alexandria), in Cyprus (in Famagusta), in Palestine (in San Giovanni d'Acri), in Greece (in Chios), in Asia Minor (in Trebizond).

Moving to the west, Ancona warehouses were present in the Adriatic in Ragusa and Segna, in Sicily in Syracuse and Messina, in Spain in Barcelona and Valencia, and in Africa in Tripoli.

"[17] He was named by his fellow humanists "father of the antiquities", who made his contemporaries aware of the existence of the Parthenon, Delphi, the Pyramids, the Sphinx and other famous ancient monuments believed destroyed.

[18] The navigator Grazioso Benincasa was born in Ancona; he was the best known Italian maritime cartographer of the fifteenth century and the author of several portolan charts of the Mediterranean.

[3] The Venetians deployed numerous galleys and the galleon Totus Mundus in the port of Ancona, while imperial troops laid siege from the land.

[20] One of the protagonists of the siege of 1174 was the widow Stamira, who showed great courage by setting fire to the war machines of the besieger with an axe and a torch.

[20] Originally named Communitas Anconitana (Latin for 'Anconitan community'), Ancona had an independence de facto: Pope Alexander III (around 1100–1181) declared it a free city within the Papal States; Pope Eugene IV confirmed the legal position defined by his predecessor and on September 2, 1443 officially declared it a republic, with the name Respublica Anconitana;[20][23] almost simultaneously Ragusa was officially called "republic",[24] confirming the fraternal bond that united the two Adriatic ports.

[3] Pope Clement VII, under the false pretext of an imminent attack on the city by the Turks, offered to have new fortification of the Citadel on Colle Astagno built at the papacy's expense, sending the architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.

On 19 September 1532, Ancona was occupied and, due to the cannons of the Citadel aimed at the city and its main access roads, was forced to unconditionally surrender its independence; with an ante litteram coup d'état, Pope Clement VII put an end to de facto freedom, thus placing the city under the direct dominion of the Papal States.

The church of St. Anna had existed since the 13th century, initially as "Santa Maria in Porta Cipriana," on ruins of the ancient Greek walls of Ancona.

[27] In 1534 a decision by Pope Paul III favoured the activity of merchants of all nationalities and religions from the Levant and allowed them to settle in Ancona with their families.

In the second half of the 16th century, the presence of Greek and other merchants from the Ottoman Empire declined after a series of restrictive measures taken by the Italian authorities and the pope.

Ancona’s legal framework was particularly influenced by its status as a maritime republic and its competitive but cooperative relationship with other Adriatic trading powers like Venice and Ragusa.

His work, De Mercatura (1553), is regarded as one of the earliest comprehensive treatises on Commercial law, particularly relevant for guiding the conduct of merchants and the framework for contracts within and beyond Ancona’s borders.