Veduta aerea di Urbino
The Palazzo Ducale is a masterpiece of Renaissance art and is the jewel in Urbino’s crown. It houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. The work is generally attributed to Laurana who gave his name to the two slender, sixty-metre towers. These towers were a new concept at that time and became symbolic of the city. Other well-known architects who were involved in the works and left indelible signs of their craftsmanship were Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Girolamo Genga.
The oldest part is decorated with mullioned windows and faces on to the Gothic church of S. Domenico. Leaving behind the exterior with its superb windows and entrances, the interior houses a splendid Cortile d’Onore. Here the proportion of the surrounding sides, the design of the colonnades, the contrast of the red brick against the pale Travertine marble and the eulogies to Frederick II that adorn the courtyard from on high combine to underline what must have been the harmony and balance that thrived in those early Renaissance times.
The ducal palace is perhaps visited best by following a tour that has Federico II di Montefeltro as its central theme. The upper floors are gained using what is considered to be the first monumental staircase in Italian civil architecture. The upper floors house the National Gallery of the Marches.
Due no doubt to his refined education, Federico da Montefeltro had the foresight to use this area to preserve the best of the Italian Renaissance.
il Duomo
With the aim of recreating the home of the Muses within his own four walls, he surrounded himself with the best men and artists of that time e.g. Piero della Francesca, Luciano Laurana, Leon Battista Alberti, Francesco di Giorgio Martini. It was this cultural embryo that nurtured such names as Raffaello and Bramante.
The historic centre of Urbino that measures little over one square kilometre is surrounded by baked brick ramparts. The shape is that of an elongated rhombus and the centre is bisected by two main streets that meet at right angles (Via Mazzini and Via Cesare Battisti at one junction and Via Raffaello and Via Veneto at the other) and that meet up in the main piazza (Piazza della Repubblica).
History, art and culture
Palazzo Ducale – veduta delle torri
Urbino’s origins have been lost in the mists of time. Around 1375 Anthony of Montefeltro, one of the most outstanding warriors and politicians of the late 14th century, shrewdly entered the game of Italian politics of his day, allying himself with Florence and Milan, and therefore Gian Galeazzo Visconti. His prestige thus increased, Pope Boniface VIII absolved him from censures and recognised all his territories in 1390. This situation augured well for the city, which was able to arise from the morass of internecine strife. Soon there was a reawakening of the arts and architecture, the first step towards that unstoppable rise which would lead to the success of his nephew, Frederick II. He it was who ordered the building of the ducal palace, which now houses the University, and the making of contacts with the world of culture, which would lead to the production of significant works of art.
After Frederick came Guy Anthony, who in turn maintained a shrewd policy of equilibrium. In 1416, during Guy Anthony’s reign, brothers Lorenzo and Jacopo Sanseverino painted the frescoes at the Oratory of St John the Baptist, brining the late Gothic to Urbino.
After his death in1443, the lordship was offered to sixteen-year-old Oddantonio who was assassinated for his financial ineptitude and profligacy along with two of his ministers on 21 July 1444.
The Urbanese then offered the lordship to Federico III (1444-82), the illegitimate son of Guy Anthony and the most prominent ruler of Urbino, a pupil of Vittorino da Feltre’s school and a lover of art. With the death of his half-brother Oddantonio, he ruled alone.
Cortile d’Onore del Palazzo Ducale
Under him Urbino became the resort of the brightest minds of the Renaissance. It was he who commissioned Luciano Laurana to build his residence that was later described by Castiglioni as “a city-shaped palace “. This edifice, he also said, was the first example of an architectural and urban design project with close ties to nature.
Federico da Montefeltro was to receive significant acknowledgment in the years to follow: His Holiness called him to Rome to award him the Order of St Peter (a short time later, his daughter married the Pope’s nephew, Giovanni della Rovere). Edward IV of England made him a knight of the garter, and the King of Naples, a knight of the Ermine Order.
Death took him by surprise in 1482, when his son Guidubaldo I was still a child.
Cortile d’onore del Palazzo Ducale
Wisely tutored by his uncle, Octavian Ubaldini, he retained all his father’s powers. Pope Leo X deprived him of his territory, which was given to Lorenzo de’ Medici, and later to Giovanni Maria Varano. The following year he regained definitive ownership of the Duchy, and several years of calm for the city and court followed. The time was right for the artistic genius of Raphael to flourish. His father, Giovanni Santi, had died on 1 August 1494. The orphan, placed under the guardianship of his maternal uncle, entered the studio of a charming painter, Timothy Viti, a pupil of Francia. Upon recommendation of the Duchess, Giovanna Feltria Della Rovere, he was to seek work in Florence and Rome, where he would reach his zenith.
Meanwhile, back at court, the main problem of the day was the lack of rightful heirs, so on the death of Guidubaldo (1508) the Duchy passed into the hands of Francis Mary I of the Della Rovere dynasty. Although they could never equal the splendours of the Montefeltros, the Della Roveres still surrounded themselves with musicians, writers, artists, and glitterati. Many works, however, were commissioned from Titian, not to mention the others ordered from Urbino painter Federico Barocci, all of which shed a glorious light on the last years of Della Rovere rule.
In 1523, the court decided to transfer the capital of the Duchy to Pesaro, after which the town of Urbino began its slow decline.
The lowest point in Urbino’s history came with Napoleonic occupation, and the suppression of churches, convents, and monasteries, with the consequent theft and expropriation of great works of art (either sent to France – paintings and sculptures – or melted down for use as weapons – bronzes). Some were even sent to Milan, such as Piero della Francesco’s well-known Madonna col Bambino e Santi, now in the Brera Gallery.
UNESCO INSCRIPTION
Palazzo Ducale
The Historic Centre of Urbino
Id N° 828 1998 C (ii) (iv)
During its brief reign of cultural supremacy, Urbino attracted some of the most illustrious scholars and artists of the Renaissance, who designed an extraordinarily homogeneous city and extended its influence over the rest of Europe.
Urbino is at the apex of Renaissance art and architecture, so harmoniously adapted to its physical surroundings and its mediaeval past that the whole city is simply breathtaking.
