Built on the ruins of the town of Ostra, founded by Senoni Gauls at a later date than the fourth century BC, then conquered by the Romans and destroyed during the barbarian invasions, Ostra Vetere became a free Municipality in the thirteenth century. Its historical events are closely linked to the nearby town of Ostra, with which it came under the control of Ancona and underwent several lordships. in the early sixteenth century it was occupied by Cesare Borgia, and was subsequently annexed to the papal territories. As it occurred to most of the area surrounding Ancona, during the eighteenth century, at the end of an age marked by ruinous famines, it suffered the abuses of the Austrian troops passing through the Church territories and the French invasion. Once called Montenovo, it assumed its present name in 1882, drawing it from the ancient Roman city, and adding the word Vetere, "old", to distinguish it from the town of Montalboddo, who had already obtained to be called Ostra. The most interesting artistic evidence of its past are represented by sacred and secular monuments that are in harmony with the unique urban structure of the town, surrounded by the ancient three-fifteenth-century walls and dominated by the beautiful neo-Gothic spire of the Church of Santa Maria della Piazza. Valuable religious buildings are the Church of San Severo, which can be accessed by crossing the magnificent Santa Croce Romanesque portal (boasting four-sixteenth-century frescoes) and the Church of the Crocifisso (Crucifix), frescoed by Lombardello.