Urbino

Urbino is the major city in the Marche in Italy, southwest of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site with a great cultural history during the Renaissance as the seat of Federico da Montefeltro. It has retained some of its picturesque medieval aspect on steep sloping ground, though tourists' carparks occupy the former fields below. Urbino is home to the University of Urbino, founded in 1564, and is the seat of the Archbishop of Urbino (see below). Its great urbanistic feature is the Palazzo Ducale, rebuilt by Luciano Laurana, an architect from Dalmatia.

History

The modest Roman town of Urvinum Mataurense ("the little city on the river Mataurus") became an important strategic stronghold in the Gothic wars of the 6th century, captured in 538 from the Goths by the champion of the Emperor of the East, Belisarius, and frequently mentioned by the Byzantine historian Procopius. Though Pippin presented Urbino to the Papacy, independent traditions were expressed in its commune, until, around 1200 it came into the possession of the fighting nobles of nearby Montefeltro. They had no direct authority over the commune, but could pressure the commune to elect them podestà (potestas, "power") as Bonconte di Montefeltro managed in 1213, with the result that the Urbinese rebelled, formed an alliance with the independent commune of Rimini (1228), and by 1234 were masters of the city again. In the struggles between Guelf and Ghibelline factions, associated with individual families and cities, rather than the struggle between Hohenstaufen emperors and the Papacy as they had been, the 13th and 14th century Montefeltro lords of Urbino were leaders of the Ghibellines of the Marche and in the Romagna.

The most famous member of the Montefeltro was Federico, lord of Urbino 1444 to 1482, an oustandingly successful condottiere, a skillful diplomat and an enthusiastic patron of art and literature. At his court Piero della Francesca wrote on the science of perspective, Francesco di Giorgio Martini his Trattato d architettura ("Treatis on Architecture") and Raphel's father Giovanni Santi his poetical account of the chief artists of his time. Federico's brilliant court, through the descriptions in Baldassare Castiglione's Il Cortegiano ("The Book of the Courtier"), set standards of what characterized a "gentleman" in early modern Europe that were still a propos in World War I. (See Federico da Montefeltro for full biography.)

Cesare Borgia dispossessed Guidobaldo da Montefeltre, duke of Urbino, and Elisabetta Gonzaga in 1502, with the connivance of his Papal uncle, and Urbino became part of the Papal States under a dynasty of Della Rovere family dukes. In 1626 Pope Urban VIII incorporated the independent Duchy of Urbino into the papal dominions, the gift of the weary last Della Rovere duke in retirement after the assassination of his heir, to be governed by the archbishop. Its great library was removed to Rome and added to the Vatican Library in 1657. The later history of Urbino is part of the history of the Papal States and , after 1870, of the History of Italy.

Archbishops of Urbino

The first known bishop in Urbino was Leontius, made Bishop of Rimini by Gregory the Great in 592. The cathedral was not permitted within the walls by the independent-spirited commune until 1021, under Bishop Theodoricus. Among a long list of bishops of interest within the Roman Catholic Church, Oddone Colonna (1380), later reigned as Pope Martin V. In 1563 Pius IV made the see metropolitan, that is independent of Rimini, with its own suffragans, or assistant bishops at Cagli, Sinigaglia, Pesaro, Forssombrone, Montefeltro, and Gubbio.

Majolica

The clay earth of Urbino, which still supports industrial brickworks, supplied a cluster of earthenware manufactories (botteghe) making the tin-glazed pottery known as maiolica. Simple local wares were being made in the 15th century at Urbino, but after 1520 the Della Rovere dukes, Francesco Maria della Rovere and his successor Guidobaldo II, encouraged the industry, which exported wares throughout Italy, first in a manner called istoriato using engravings after Mannerist painters, then in a style of light arabesques and grottesche after the manner of Raphael's stanzi at the Vatican. Other centers of 16th century wares in the Duchy of Urbino were at Gubbio and Castel Durante. The great name in Urbino majolica was that of Nicolo Pillipario's son Guido Fontana

Francesco Laurana and the Palazzo Ducale

The Ducal Palace was rebuilt for duke Federico da Montefeltro by Francesco Laurana, an architect from Dalmatia who had seen Brunelleschi's cloisters in Florence. The light and noble arcaded courtyard at Urbino rivals that of the Cancelleria in Rome as the finest of the Renaissance. Overcoming the exigencies of the clifflike site, which made an irregular massing of architecture necessary, from the 1460s onwards Laurana created what contemoraries considered the ideal princely dwelling. In high plain stuccoed rooms, the richly sculptured doorways, chimneys and friezes stand apart, executed by Domenico Rosselli of Florence, Ambrogio d'Antonio of Milan and their workshops. The beautifully executed intarsia work of the Duke's small study (the Studiolo), with trompe-l'oeil shelves and half-open latticework doors display symbolic objects representing the Arts, is the single most famous example of this Italian craft of inlay.

The palace continued in use as a government building into the 20th century, housing municipal archives and offices, and public collections of antique inscriptions, of sculpture, and the paintings gallery, including works by Paolo Uccello, Giovanni Santi, Justus of Ghent (a Last Supper with portraits of the Montefeltro family and the court), Timoteo della Vite, and other i5th-century artists, and a late Resurrection by Titian.

Urbino as a city of art

Donato Bramante was born nearby, and witnessed Laurana's work going up while he was a youth. Raphael Santi was also born at Urbino, where his family's house is a museum-shrine. Others from Urbino: Bartolommeo Carusi, theologian and professor at Bologna and Paris; Federico Commandini (1509), mathematician; Bernardino Baldi (1533 — 1617), mathematician and writer; Polydore Vergil or Virgil (c. 1470 - 1555), chronicler in England; Ludovio della Vernaccia (13th century), poet; Laura Battiferri-Ammanati (17th century), poet; Raphael Fabretti (1618 - 1700), antiquary; Federico Barocci (painter); Pope Clement XI; and Valentino Rossi (1979 - ), motocross champion.

The old cathedral in the main piazza collapsed in a tremor, 1801, but the sacristy has the Scourging of Christ by Piero della Francesca, and other pictures by later artists, and the crypt has a Pietà in marble by Giambologna. Facing the palace the Gothic church of San Domenico has an early Renaissance portal with a glazed terracotta lunette relief by Luca della Robbia (1449). San Francesco has a fine 14th century loggia and campanile, and a handsome portal of a chapel in the interior by Constantino Trappola (15th century).

S. Bernardino, outside the town, is a plain early Renaissance structure. On the walls of the chapel of the gild or confraternity of San Giovanni Battista are some valuable early frescoes, painted by Lorenzo and Giacomo Salimbene da San Severino in 1416. In the church of S. Spirito are two paintings by Luca Signorelli, the Crucifixion and the Day of Pentecost, originally intended for a processional banner.

The theatre, decorated by Girolamo Genga, is one of the earliest in Italy; in it was performed the first Italian comedy, Calunna by Cardinal Bibbiena, the friend of Leo X and Raphael.

See also List of World Heritage Sites in Europe.

External links

• Laurana at the Ducal Palace (illustrated)

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