Ancona lies on the promontory of Monte Conero and overlooks the sea.
Founded by the Greeks in 387 B.C., the town developed remarkably when the Emperor Hadrian transformed its small harbor into one of the most important ports in the Adriatic Sea.

The Cathedral of San Ciriaco dominates the city from Guasco Hill, where remains of the ancient acropolis are still visible. Places of noticeable historical and artistic interest are also the Roman Amphitheater (1st century A.D.), the Arch of Trajan (115 A.D.), and the Church of S. Maria della Piazza (11th century). On the establishment of the free port, in 1733, Ancona was enriched by the Mole Vanvitelliana, originally a quarantine station then a multifunctional building, designed by the baroque architect Luigi Vanvitelli on an artificial island within the harbor.
Most of the territory of the town is inside the Conero Regional Park, characterized by extensive evergreen woods of Mediterranean vegetation.

The Faculty of Economics was originally set up in 1959 as a branch of the University of Urbino, dating back to the late Middle Age. Paramount in the development of the Faculty was Giorgio Fuà, one of the major Italian economists, who worked with Gunnar Myrdal at the United Nations, Enrico Mattei at ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi) and Adriano Olivetti.

For nearly forty years the seat of the Faculty was the historic Palazzo degli Anziani (Palace of the Elders), which commands a sweeping view of the port of Ancona. In 1998, it moved to Caserma Villarey, a military headquarter built in the 1860s in the center of town. After the Second world war the building had sheltered civilian families evacuated during the bombings of the city, then it was abandoned, and finally restored in the 1990s, when a vast Greek and Roman necropolis was discovered in the site. Nowadays the Faculty "Giorgio Fuà is placed within one of the largest green areas of the town, the Parco Cardeto, including the ancient Hebrew cemetery, the Papal lighthouse and a walk on the cliffs of the Mount Conero.