Why is Gabicce Mare called like this?
Gabicce Mare or Gabicce Monte: where does its name come from?
Behind every name there’s a story and every story – especially if it belongs to a wonderful town like Gabicce Mare – deserves to be told. In this article we will learn something about the toponym – the proper name of a geographic location – of Gabicce Mare. As you already know, Gabicce Mare is a beautiful town which is worth visiting especially in summer: in fact, it is one of the best places on the Adriatic coast where to go on vacation. Gabicce Mare is the northernmost town of our region, it borders with Emilia-Romagna and is located in the province of Pesaro and Urbino. It sits on a little bay called Baia degli Angeli (bay of the angels) and is located on the slopes of Monte San Bartolo (perfect place for a walk).
But where does the name come from? We are not completely sure about its origin, but we can give an interpretation near to historical facts. Thanks to many archaeological finds we know that Gabicce Mare was already inhabited in Roman times, that was already known under the name of Castellu Ligabitii in 998 and had a fort. The origin of its name is still unclear; since the town is located on a hill, some local historians maintain the town could have got the name from its geographic configuration. It comes from the Greek word Lykabettòs which defines a hill located to the northeast of Athens: in fact, as the historical sources dating from 325/24 BC show, Gabicce Mare was one of the places that the Greeks aimed to conquer on the Italian territory.
