The following pages aim to give a concise but comprehensive account of the political and cultural climate at the court of Urbino, generally recognized as one of the most illustrious of the Italian Renaissance.

It is common knowledge that Baldassare Castiglione’s supremely European (1) masterpiece,The Courtier is a glowing tribute to the Urbino court, described as a blueprint for a new political order. The «portrait» (2), painted in «lively, colourful fresco» (3), though with due regard for historical and documentary accuracy, explores the idea of Urbino as an ideal court and the model for a new political structure, devised and vigorously promoted by Federico di Montefeltro in person. Four centuries later, the great historian of the Italian Renaissance, Jacob Burckhardt, mentions Urbino, along with other Italian principalities, as an example of the Renaissance state as work of art:

«Not merely the state, but the court too, was a work of art and organization in every sense of the word» (4).

This fact needs stressing from the outset in suggesting the relevance of these pages to students from different nations, all of which, to varying degrees, can point to the court - the institution first described by Castiglione with specific reference to Urbino - as a key factor in their history, at least until the French Revolution.

This is probably as convenient a place as any to offer a short description of the geographical setting of what was to become the capital of the Montefeltro duchy: Now part of the Marches Region (5), Urbino lies between the two river valleys of the Foglia and Metauro, some 35 kilometres from the Adriatic Sea at Pesaro. And that is exactly how it is introduced in the opening pages of Castiglione’s work:

«On the slopes of the Apennines towards the Adriatic, almost in the centre of Italy, is situated, as is well known, the little city of Urbino. Although located in a mountainous region, less pleasant than some we may have seen, it is favoured by heaven in that the country is exceedingly fertile and rich in the fruits of the earth. And besides the pure and health-giving air of the region, all things necessary to human life are to be found here in great abundance. But among the greater blessings that it can be said to enjoy, this I believe is the foremost, that for a long time now it has been ruled by excellent lords - even though, in the universal calamity of the wars in Italy, it was deprived of them for a time. But, to look no further, we can cite good proof of this in the glorious memory of Duke Federico, who in his day was the light of Italy. Nor is there any shortage of true witnesses still living who can testify to his prudence, humanity, justice, liberality, undaunted spirit, to his military prowess, signally attested by his many victories, the capture of impregnable places, the prompt readiness of his expeditions, the many times when with only small forces he routed large and very powerful armies, and the fact that he never lost a single battle; so that not without reason may we compare him to many famous men among the ancients» (6).

Urbino was originally the Roman municipality, Urvinum Metaurense (7), under the provisions of Caesar’s Lex Julia Municipalis of 46 B.C. In the sixth and seventh centuries, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Urbino was included in the territories linked to the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Eastern Roman Empire (8). Along with Cagli, Iesi, Fossombrone and Gubbio it made up the so-called Pentapoli (or union of five towns) which, together with the maritime Pentapoli (Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigallia, Ancona) was destined to be incorporated into the emergent Church State. Once the Lombard,

Liutprand, had donated Sutri to Pope Gregory II, the temporal power of the popes increased rapidly until it extended over much of central Italy.

From a juridical point of view, at least, Urbino belonged to the Papal State until 1860, but in common with other central Italian cities this did not prevent it from evolving forms of local autonomy. In the course of time it would be granted its own regulations and, like all feudal cities, placed under the authority of a bishop. After the Holy Roman Empire and the period of feudal anarchy following the overthrow of Charles the Fat in 887, the situation in Italy deteriorated alarmingly. While national monarchies were emerging in France and Germany, the feudal state in Italy was only just managing to keep a vestige of control over central and northern regions. These areas were ravaged by local warlords with designs on the crown of Italy, though none of them were capable of repelling the latest wave of invaders, whether Slavs, Hungarians or Saracens. When the empire was re-established under the Saxony dynasty, Italy not only became part of the German empire but found itself saddled with bishop-counts who wielded real power in an attempt to maintain order and bolster the authority of the sovereign. After the year 1000, the empire’s increasing interference in the affairs of the Church (with the inevitable disputes over investitures) coincided with a period of urban revival: by enhancing the importance of their cathedrals and bishops, cities fostered a minimum of economic and cultural activity and encouraged the emergence of a middle class composed of the minor nobility and the new landowners who disapproved of the old-style feudal dependence. Motives of joint interest led city dwellers to develop a form of administration known as a comune. Around the twelfth century, the resurgence of city life - not just in France and Germany but in Italy as well - was marked by a resumption of trade, an increase in artisan activity, and the return of money to circulation again. The really significant feature of the twelfth century is the achievement of ever greater independence from the feudal overlord or bishop. While in England, Northern France and Southern Italy the development of the comune is closely linked to the growth of a strong, solid, centralized power, in Central and Northern Italy (as in the cities of Germany, Provence and Languedoc) the absence of any such centralized, cohesive force meant that the towns enjoyed prerogatives akin to those of a sovereign state.

There is evidence that Urbino was already a major centre, both militarily and culturally, by the Middle Ages. If its geographical position ensured its strategic importance (and since Roman times it had been laid out as a fortified settlement surrounded by strong walls), the Laudario - that remarkable collection of religious poems from the city’s Confraternity of the Holy Cross - suggests that Urbino was also the focus of some intense literary activity of a devotional kind (9).

Because of the continual conflicts between the various institutions of the commune (exacerbated by the rise of the popolo), the ongoing feuds with neighbouring cities and the invariably strained relations with surrounding castles and villages, the medieval city gradually became aware that it needed a stronger, more authoritative and longer-lasting power than the podestà. What tended to happen in the thirteenth century, when Central and Northern Italy were dogged by conflict and struggle, was that executive power (either podestà or capitano del popolo) was repeatedly invested in the hands of the same person, thus paving the way for the advent of the signorie. The gradual disappearance of public offices as they lost any real authority or power to act independently, the conflicts within the comune, faction among the various social groups, and the ways in which they expressed their corporate identity sparked off an endless series of power struggles which had a bearing on the wider scenario of the Guelf-Ghibelline conflict: hence the tendency to replace the old forms of government with a single, powerful ruler, capable (ideally) of defending his territory by force. But the new ruler was as much interested in extending his authority over neighbouring areas (thereby creating a more ambitious power structure) as he was in reforming the state at home, which explains the need for alliances and political and military pacts.

Whereas for some cities territorial alliances were forever being forged and dissolved, for others the process was one of gradual consolidation as they assumed the characteristics of a signoria. Over a hundred years of power struggles to decide the shape of the major Italian states were brought to end in 1454 by the Peace of Lodi (1454), between the Sforza family of Milan and the city of Venice (10). The Florentine, Cosimo dei Medici, now promoted a policy aimed at maintaining a balance of power. After the alliance with Venice, he signed one with Francesco Sforza in the belief that a strong Duchy of Milan would keep the power of Venice in check.

As regards the Church State and, more particularly, the situation of Urbino at this time, it should be remembered that the removal of the papacy to Avignon (1309-1378), followed by the Great Schism of the Western Church (1378-1449), had undermined the pope’s authority in the Church State and created a political vacuum which the Rector of the Marches was no longer in a position to control. By now, cities and their overlords paid no more than lip service to papal authority. Pope Innocent VI tried to regain this power through Cardinal Egidio Albornoz (11) in an effort to wrest control of the papal towns from their local rulers. The attempt, which involved a certain amount of armed conflict, had important consequences: e.g. the Malatesti family were granted control of the cities of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano and Fossombrone. The Malatesti and the Montefeltro came from the same part of the Montefeltro area. Their histories are tightly interwoven as both families strove to increase their property and extend their authority, within the broader framework of the struggle between the papacy and the empire.

The Montefeltro family, originally from Montecopiolo, first rose to some prominence at the end of the twelfth century. In order to arrive at an understanding of the often complex developments on the political scene in Italy - and especially Central Italy - it is helpful to bear in mind that local warlords acquired greater importance and took on new roles when they joined the conflict between the empire and the papacy. This explains how two members of the Montefeltro family - Buonconte and Taddeo, sons of Montefeltrano - were granted the territory of Urbino by the Swabian Emperor Frederick II in return for military support against the restored Lombard League (12). This marks the start of the unification of the contado (or surrounding castles and villages): no easy task since there were other families anxious to prevent the Montefeltro from expanding. The rulers of Urbino found themselves surrounded on three sides by the Malatesti (de iure overlords of Rimini since 1334) who had gradually extended their control along the coast by occupying Gradara, Pesaro, Fano and Senigallia, and pushed inland to control Fossombrone and Pergola (13). Neither were they the only threat. There were the Brancaleoni from the Massa Trabaria to the west, the Gaboardi from Macerata Feltria and Certaldo, the Ubaldini and the della Faggiola counts, and so on. The geopolitical map which emerges is fragmented in the extreme: a plethora of local warlords, each claiming legitimacy and deploying their military strength to best advantage as they jockey for position among their rivals (14).

Research (which is neither straightforward nor conclusive) suggests that at the end of the fourteenth century the territory, or county, of Urbino bordered on Rimini (ruled by the Malatesta) to the north, and on the Massa Trabaria and the Apennines dividing Tuscany from the Marches to the west; to the east, it took in the lower valley of the river Foglia, and extended southwards as far as Gubbio, which was conquered by Antonio di Montefeltro in 1384. The conquest of Gubbio was important because it provided the Montefeltro with a vantage point from which to monitor the traffic of men and goods along the Tiber valley towards Rome. The Urbino lords were already carrying out similar surveillance along their border with Tuscany. In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the territory of Urbino was gradually being unified as it came under the control of the Montefeltro family who aimed to formalize their lordship by developing the first really considerable state institutions. This is the period in which, thanks to the enterprise of Guidantonio (an important condottiero, or mercenary leader), the Urbino militias were placed at the service of the major political factions: this ensured that the city and its scant surrounding territory would profit both in terms of wealth and a higher political profile. Guidantonio’s direct descendants, and especially Federico di Montefeltro, were to take full advantage of this legacy.

Federico was born in Gubbio in 1422, the illegitimate son of Guidantonio. He came to power in Urbino after the short reign of Oddantonio, Guidantonio’s legitimate son, killed in a palace coup in 1444 (15). On the death of Oddantonio, Federico, two years his senior, took over the reins of government with the full approval of his subjects who made him swear that he would abide by the statutes of the community (16). But what sort of a man was Federico when he seized power in 1444? As already mentioned, he was the natural son of Guidantonio (reports of his birth are varied and contradictory(17)) and had already made a name for himself as a military commander and a man to be reckoned with on the political front. While still a youth, he was claimed as a hostage by the Venetian republic which was acting as guarantor of the peace between the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti (Guidantonio’s ally), and Pope Eugenius 1V. Because of the threat of plague in Venice, Federico moved to Mantua and spent two formative years at the Casa gioiosa, or Joyous House, the school run by Vittorino da Feltre (18) The humanist education he received led him to place great value on qualities such as dignity and composure, as well as instilling in him a love of art and culture. After his marriage to Gentile Brancaleoni (19) - whose house he had been brought up in - he took command of his company of mercenaries (20) and went to serve Filippo Visconti.

Federico had studied military strategy with Niccolò Piccinino and now put that knowledge to good use, both in the campaigns waged on behalf of Visconti and in helping his father, Guidantonio, in his ongoing feud with the Malatesta family, headed at this time by Sigismondo Pandolfo. It was by seizing the fortress of San Leo (hitherto considered impregnable) from the Malatesta in 1441 that Federico gained his reputation as a military commander of genius (21).

Besides showering him with fame and honours, Federico’s mercenary campaigns brought in a considerable revenue which meant that he was quickly able to place the state of Urbino on a solid financial footing without having to rely on taxing his subjects. This was a major difference between Urbino and other, larger states, and it is one which Ann Katherine Isaacs rightly stresses in her seminal work. She points out that whereas in larger states:

«the management of public finance was aimed at securing tax revenue from a more or less recalcitrant population, for defence purposes or in order to fund expansionist designs, in the case of Urbino, «tax» revenue came from other states. The mainstay of a major, regional state is its ability to win sufficient broad-based support to exact the necessary funds to defend its territory and ensure stability. The mainstay of the Montefeltro state, however, was the support it gained through its proven ability to provide part of those sums itself. The dynamic, unifying structure of the state was a sort of extended family, with ramifications reaching out to all areas of the state and all social levels. The task of this group was to wage war on its own behalf, but mainly on behalf of others. Mercenary campaigns were essential to social bonding, as was pillage. The former were funded by taxes levied by the larger states; the latter was a sort of enforced taxation, a plundering of other subjects’ wealth. The mercenary company enabled both these activities to take place: so the Montefeltro court was not merely a symbol of unity, it was also the place where soldiers were trained and spoils shared out. The contribution which this group made to the state rested on a clear contractual understanding: adherence to the terms of surrender, light taxation, wholesale participation in military and administrative activities» (22).

In other words, what made Federico’s state exceptional was that its strength lay in the very nature of the relations which he established with the city, the inhabitants and the court. Over and above the tributes conferred on him by his biographers (23), it has to be stressed that the military and political reputation built up both through his campaigns, his diplomatic skills in settling disputes between rival states, and his unshakeable loyalty to those who engaged his services had enabled him to get round the basic, major problem of his allegiance to the pope. Federico held power at the bidding of the pope. This meant that his authority was temporary and subject to papal renewal in return for duties and services rendered. What is more, the state of Urbino was still a patchwork of strongholds, owned by minor nobles, and divided up into a whole series of districts, each with its own council and statutes. It was one of Federico’s indisputable achievements that rather than antagonizing these local bodies he dealt with them so adroitly that they contributed to the strength and greatness of the state. Clearly, it was Federico’s responsibility to appoint the podestà and other officials, but he managed to do this without interfering with the autonomous administration of the towns and aiming, above all, to ensure that aristocrats (and even more so the rank and file) were loyal to the court.

The period from 1444 to 1450 saw Federico getting to grips with the problem of consolidating the institutions of state in Urbino. The highlights of a policy carried through with considerable panache include crushing the resistance of certain vassals, attracting the city-dwelling nobility to the court, being careful not to antagonize the people by contravening the provisions of their statutes (while employing trusted officials to skirt round them), seizing the town of Fossombrone from the Malatesta, and allowing Sforza to occupy Pesaro (and, in so doing, plunging relations with Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta to a record low). In drawing his state together geographically, Federico gave the impression of governing with great liberality, though he was, at the same time, demonstrating considerable strength and single-mindedness - qualities shown in his turning his back on the Sforza family when Francesco, Duke of Milan, enlisted the support of Malatesti.

By 1451, Federico was squinting from a wound to the right eye during a tournament in Urbino - hence all his portraits (whether by Piero della Francesca, Pedro Berruguete, Francesco di Giorgio Martini or Justus Ghent) are in profile. It was in 1451 that he switched to the service of the Aragonese of Naples who were shortly to ally with Venice in the war against Milan the following year. The Aragonese king could be an awkward man to deal with, but Federico consistently demonstrated the sort of tact and mediation skills which enabled him to pull off a number of diplomatic triumphs, especially after the Peace of Lodi (1454) and the setting up of the Italic League (24) in the interests of maintaining a balance of power among the states. For example, he managed to persuade Giacomo Piccinino - in charge of a mercenary band in the pay of the King of Naples and now keen to stake out his own territory - to withdraw from Assisi and Gualdo which he had taken by force in the interregnum between the death of Pope Calixtus III and the election of Pius II (25). The new pope appreciated Federico’s intervention and, from then on, relations between them were based on respect and collaboration. Even more outstanding was Federico’s mediation on behalf of the Aragonese in their dispute with the Angevins who were backed by the feudal lords. Now that he was back on excellent terms with the Sforza family of Milan, he managed to persuade them to support the Aragonese faction against the Angevins who also had the backing of the Malatesta. Federico’s political skills were accompanied by a good dose of solid, common sense. While his reputation as a mediator continued to grow, qualifying him to head the Italic League, he never lost sight of the need to safeguard his own state. This he did by further isolating his enemy, Malatesta, and forging an even closer alliance with the Sforza family of Pesaro - an alliance sealed by Federico’s new marriage to Battista Sforza, daughter of Alessandro, Lord of Pesaro, and niece of the Duke of Milan (26).

Defending the status quo against the expansionist aims of the Papal State - even greedier after the election of Pope Paul II and the start of that nepotism which was destined to have such adverse effects in the years to come - was not only a practical necessity (given Federico’s position in the Italic League), but an instance of political far-sightedness: he was fully aware that the Church’s designs, firstly on Cesena and later on Rimini, could end up by hemming him in and maybe even destroying his state. Federico succeeded in winning over to his cause Lorenzo the Magnificent, ruler of Florence, and the Aragonese, but not Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the new ruler of Milan, to whom Federico surrendered his mandate as General of the Italic League after lending assistance to the young Roberto Malatesta in resisting papal policy. Federico’s decision risked upsetting a painfully achieved equilibrium, though in the event it generated greater unity among the powers as the alliances were re-examined, and increased his own popularity, authority and prestige. As Federico’s personal reputation grew, so did his city of Urbino: building work forged ahead, the construction of the Ducal Palace kept pace with similar projects in Gubbio and Fossombrone where fortified strongholds were being designed by that military architect of genius, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, who also built fortresses in some of the smaller towns of the area - Mondavio, Mondolfo, Santagatafeltria, Sassocorvaro, Frontone and Tavoleto (27).

By this time the state was organized along modern lines, with the administrative machinery firmly in the hands of the court, and the subjects enjoying a high standard of living. At the very height of his fame, Federico was finally blessed with a male heir: Battista gave birth to Guidobaldo on 24 January 1472, in Gubbio, where Federico himself was born.

The period from 1472 to 1476 are glorious years for Federico, despite the shadow cast by the death of Battista just six months after providing him with an heir. The triumph and prosperity he enjoyed were the fruit of his military and diplomatic skills, not unmixed perhaps with some adroit double-dealing - perfectly understandable in the climate of hatred, suspicion and intrigue which dominated the political life of the time. These were the years in which Francesco Prendilacqua, a young student of Vittorino da Feltre’s, was sent to Urbino as a special envoy and reported back to the ruler of Mantua. From his letters, Urbino emerges not only as the fulcrum around which the fragile political agreements of the time gravitated, but as a fruitful context in which to study the difficult art of politics (28). Federico reached the height of his success in 1474 when he was designated duke by Pope Sixtus 1V - who was interested in forging close family ties with the Montefeltro - and awarded the highest honour of the House of Aragon, the Order of Ermine.

The problem of Federico’s relations with the papacy and the emergence of an important state, despite geographical fragmentation and local autonomy in matters of taxation, administration and jurisdiction, have to be explained in terms of what Chittolini points to as underlying the legend of Federico: mercenary contracts, building enterprises, and the court. It was a way of living and governing which allowed his subjects to benefit from the prosperity accruing from his military campaigns at the same time as involving them in the state. This he did through personal contact (for which he was well-known), but mainly by dispensing favours, pardons, offices and counting on the splendour and power of the court.

The setting of Federico’s last venture as military commander and consummate politician was the war waged by Venice against Ferrara. After lengthy, unproductive attempts to head off a conflict - fostered by the ambitions of two «hooligans», as he described Roberto Malatesti and Girolamo Riario, Lord of Forlì and favourite nephew of Pope Sixtus 1V(29) - Federico took command of the Italic League in a war waged simultaneously on several fronts, with fortunes constantly swinging either way:

«As the war gathered heat, so, too, did the unhealthy summer. Either because of the poor quality of the air, infected by gross, putrid vapours from nearby swamps, or the noisome water which was drunk, or the excessive heat which concentrated in those low-lying, marshy neighbourhoods, or, as is probable, from all these causes combined, the season was beginning to prove noxious and pestilential. Beyond a doubt, the malignancy of the season ravaged the body all the more cruelly for finding it weakened by the suffering and hardship of war. Thus Federico suffered to see his soldiers die so wretchedly, and especially those who were sent to him from day to day by the State, and hence he was heard more than once to complain and say that he found it a burden that because of him, now old and infirm, the flower of the population and his youthful subjects should perish. But he who suffered for others’ ills soon gave occasion for others to suffer for his: around the beginning of June, he fell ill ... He died on a Tuesday, the tenth day of September, being three months and three days past his sixtieth year» (30).

So it is that one of Federico’s later biographers, Bernardino Baldi, describes the Duke’s last months. After his death, the Vicar General, Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, and the Regency Council governed the duchy on behalf of the young heir, Guidobaldo, who was still only ten. The bonds of friendship and the military ties which Federico had forged in the course of his long career survived his death. Even if there was less revenue than before, it was still enough to allow building work to go ahead on the Ducal Palace and the fortresses, under the supervision of Francesco di Giorgio Martini.

It was not long before young Guidobaldo (described by Poliziano as «a man akin to the gods») was forced to grapple with personal problems and political difficulties connected with the papacy’s expansionist designs against the Duchy of Urbino. Matters came to a head in June 1502 when Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander V1, occupied Urbino, seizing its wealth and plundering the famous ducal library. Guidobaldo was able to return to Urbino in October of the same year thanks to the good offices of a league of central Italian rulers.

The pages of Castiglione’s The Courtier which deal with Guidobaldo’s «perfection» in all fields of activity also describe the serene atmosphere of learned conversations and touch on the refined, melancholic elegance of the new duke as they evoke the delights of his court with all the inwardness of firsthand experience.

When Guidobaldo died in 1508, his duchy passed to Francesco Maria della Rovere, son of Giovanni della Rovere, nephew to the Pope and Giovanna di Montefeltro (herself Federico’s daughter and Guidobaldo’s sister) (31). When the family became extinct in 1631, the Duchy of Urbino was annexed to the Church State.

LITERATURE, MATHEMATICS, MUSIC, PAINTING

As early as the court of Antonio (1377-1404), there is evidence of a lively interest in vernacular literature in Urbino. In this case, the literature had its roots in Tuscany and fostered what amounted to a fully-fledged cult of Dante (32). While the only evidence of this interest lies in the books mentioned in the library’s Old Index, dating back to the time of Antonio, it is nonetheless true that Antonio and his family engaged in cultural activity for promotional and propaganda purposes and as a means of fostering social unity. At the time, Urbino was still something of a cultural backwater - provincial and anachronistic in its keenness to absorb the achievements of the Tuscan trecento. Under Guidantonio, Urbino moved closer to the mainstream: culturally more dynamic, it attracted many more of the learned. Guidantonio enjoyed writing poetry, as did his sister, Battista, who composed twenty or so poems of a moral and devotional nature (33). Leonardo Bruni’s «De Studi et litteris», laying down guidelines for the education of young ladies, is in fact dedicated to Battista, and Vespasiano da Bisticci again pays tribute to her in «De Claris Mulieribus». When Battista married Galeazzo Malatesta, Lord of Pesaro, at the age of nineteen, she profited from the company of her father-in-law, a poet and man of considerable learning. At Pesaro she came into contact with the new culture from Florence (Coluccio Salutati and Malatesta were regular correspondents) and her letters to her mother, to her sister Anna, and her sister-in-law Rengarda Malatesta, all reveal a sound classical education as well as unusual intellectual curiosity and the survival of that Christian humanism which was to be one of the leit-motifs of the Urbino court. Gentlemen-poets and versifying officials engaged in literary activity partly out of a genuine interest and partly through a greater or lesser awareness of what amounted to cultural policy (34).

The presence of Italian intellectuals and men of letters meant that the court of Urbino was increasingly lively from a cultural point of view. This, in turn, provided the stimulus for that radical transformation of lyrical poetry in Urbino (hitherto tied to classical models and moral compositions) associated with the work of Angelo Galli (c. 1395-1459). Galli was secretary first to Oddantonio, then to Federico and Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, «power sharer and driving force behind the cultural life of Urbino» (35). Antonio Galli’s frequent missions on behalf of the dukes of Urbino brought him into contact with the major political centres of Italy and enabled him to appreciate how important courtly poetry was in fostering social integration. His collected poems, or Canzoniere, (numbering 323 sonnets, 15 canzoni, 6 sextets, and a composition in terza rima) contains an enormous variety of subject matter (from the religious and courtly to love poetry and eulogies) and experiments with a range of stylistic registers, employing a literary language native to Emilia and Montefeltro, though its distinctive characteristics are most highly developed in the Pesaro - Urbino region. In terms of structure, innovatory features, and an innate ability to evoke a particular, varied social context, Galli’s canzoniere (36) certainly benefited from the author’s friendship with Giusto de’ Conti da Valmontone. Giusto de’ Conti was the papal envoy in the dispute between the Malatesta and the Montefeltro, and therefore resident in the region (in the marca anconitana). When his own canzoniere, «La Bella Mano»,was published in Bologna in 1472 it was enormously influential in spreading the Petrarchan lyrical model - a model which (though devoid of coherence and allusiveness and impoverished from a lexical and thematical point of view) nonetheless imposed itself so successfully as to be widely adopted by the Italian lyrical poets of the time.

When Federico di Montefeltro came to power, interest in lyrical poetry declined rapidly. Over and above the fact that Federico was not fond of the genre, there are a number of reasons for this which relate to the organization of the court of Urbino: Federico was often away on campaigns; Ottaviano degli Ubaldini stood in for him during his absences; though well educated, the princesses were not expected to act as a cultural focus in the way that Guidobaldo’s wife, Elisabetta, was to do.

Federico’s real political triumph - outstripping even his achievements as soldier and diplomat - lay in creating an image of Urbino as the perfect cradle of humanism, the small city and its court seen as extending limitless opportunities for nurturing the accomplished human being in his endless striving for perfection. Federico’s own education at the hands of Vittorino da Feltre seems to underlie both his determination to make Urbino an important cultural centre and the sort of image he wanted to leave for posterity. Right from the outset, Federico’s cultural policy was marked by his increasing commitment to humanism, apparent as early as 1455 in his choice of Martino Filetico as tutor to his illegitimate son, Buonconte, and to Ottaviano degli Ubaldini’s son, Berardino. While at Urbino, Filetico wrote his Iocundissime disputationes (37), dedicated to Federico. Even after the death of the two boys and his move to Pesaro, as tutor to Battista, Martino Filetico remained on such good terms with the Urbino court that he settled there again after Battista’s marriage to Federico in 1460. As written tributes multiplied and poets and humanists dedicated more and more of their works to Federico, the first of numerous biographies began to appear, including the contemporary Commentarii de la vita et rebus gestis Federici Comitis, by Francesco Filelfo, the verse Cronaca composed by Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, and the poems in ottava rima by Antonio Nuti (38).

This was also the period of Federico’s growing interest in mathematics. In describing the type of cultural activity which distinguished the court of Urbino, the art historian, André Chantel, talks about «mathematical humanism», and argues that its fullest expression at this time was to be found at Urbino (39). Certainly Federico’s court attracted men of distinction: Luca Pacioli (1445-1514), the famous mathematician and author of the Summa, a work of arithmetic and practical and theoretical geometry, published in Venice in 1494 and dedicated to Duke Guidobaldo (40); Piero della Francesca, a great mathematician as well as a painter of genius; Francesco di Giorgio Martini of Siena, the civil and military architect who, besides completing the Ducal Palace, built state-of-the-art fortresses in strategic points throughout the duchy and designed military machines and devices which seem to anticipate Leonardo da Vinci; the Dutchman, Paul Middelburg, Bishop of Fossombrone and doctor to the Montefeltro dukes, whose proposal to revise the calendar earned him a mention in the preface to Copernicus’ De revolutionibus. «Federico was highly skilled in geometry and arithmetic and had, in his house, a Master Paul, a man of great learning and an astrologer» (41): so it is that Vespasiano da Bisticci in his Commentario de la vita del signore Federico, duca d’Urbino refers to Paul of Middelburg, a friend and correspondent of Marsilio Ficino and well known in humanist circles in Padua. Another distinguished presence in Urbino was Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada, better known as Flavio Mitridate, «cabalist and orientalist» and Giovanni Pico’s teacher. He was responsible for translating a number of astrological works from Arabic. Astrology continued to play a significant role in the design of houses and palaces and in the layout of Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s military strongholds. There is also evidence of astrological and cabalistic signs in the Ducal Palace of Urbino and even the arrangement of the rooms and windows may have astrological significance.

In the overall cultural ideology of the court of Urbino, considerable importance was attached to music. Those notions of harmony, balance and measure which are implied in the figure of the prince and his administration are also at the root of a complex series of images, symbols and musical metaphors. This aspect of the court - at once figurative and musical - has recently been studied by Nicoletta Guidobaldi (42) who cites as examples The Allegory of Music, attributed to Justus of Ghent, the marquetry representing musical instruments in Federico’s study and two compositions: the song J’ay prins amour and the motet Bella gerit. It is known that there were numerous chapel cantors, choirboys, organists and Flemish musicians at Federico’s court. In fact, the second ballad of Antonio Nuti’s first sequence mentions the presence of cantors at court «as is common practice for popes, kings and emperors» and provides evidence that there was already a chapel choir and orchestra at Urbino in 1480.

As early as the beginning of the fifteenth century, Urbino was a meeting place for local painters and artists from outlying regions. The court was the hub and main provider of commissions, but there were other cultural enterprises in the shape of Confraternities gravitating around the court. According to Vasari, Piero della Francesca was summoned to Urbino by Guidantonio at the tender age of fifteen. Vasari’s statement may be debatable, but there is no doubt that (largely due to the far-sightedness of Ottaviano degli Ubaldini) the court started to take a keen interest in pictorial developments in Northern Europe and especially in Flemish art. Justus of Ghent was called to Urbino to complete an altarpiece - still displayed in the Ducal Palace (43) - for which Paolo Uccello had painted the predella of The Profanation of the Host between 1467 and 1469. Justus’s Communion of the Apostles achieves a synthesis between the detail and precision, the gracefulness, and the play of light and colour so typical of Flemish painting and the scientifically rigorous spatial composition of Piero della Francesca. The painting is also interesting from a documentary point of view: it shows Federico discoursing with a figure in oriental costume, possibly a Hebrew doctor serving as ambassador to the Shah of Persia. Besides its function as a tribute to the Montefeltro family (the infant Guidobaldo is there, in the arms of his wetnurse) the fact that the canvas features a Jewish figure is significant. Not only does it confirm that interest in Jewish culture which we have already remarked upon; it very obviously counteracts the anti-Jewish spirit of the predella panel in which the host is seen to be profaned by a Jew. The narrative interest with which Paolo Uccello invests The Profanation of the Host, the extraordinary feats of perspective and the fable-like way in which the story unfolds are in sharp contrast to the solemnity and ceremonial nature of Justus’s companion piece. Justus of Ghent was also responsible for some of the portraits of Famous Men which used to decorate Federico’s small study, or studiolo. If the studiolo represents a successful fusion of the characteristics of Flemish art with the research into perspective typical of Italian, the basically Flemish approach, in the pictures, seems to contain suggestions of local Urbino art and reminiscences of the work of Piero della Francesca’s pupil, Melozzo di Forlì whose painting, Dialectic and the Duke of Urbino, showing Federico kneeling before an allegory of knowledge, was destroyed in Berlin during the Second World War.

Work on the studiolo went ahead for a number of years (1472-1476) and involved artists such as Botticelli and Francesco di Giorgio Martini - who produced the designs for the marquetry work carried out by craftsmen under the supervision of Baccio Pontelli - Justus of Ghent and Pedro Berruguete. It was Berruguete who painted the portrait of Federico da Montefeltro reading with his son Guidobaldo, dating from about 1476-77: by way of suggesting the esteem in which he was held by other monarchs, Federico is portrayed wearing the insignias of the Order of Ermine (bestowed by the King of Naples) and the Order of the Garter (conferred by the King of England). He also appears in his dual role as soldier and scholar. Despite his static position, the figure of the Duke is dynamic, imposing and majestic thanks to a skilful play of line, colour and lighting effect.

The arrival of Piero della Francesca (a native of Sansepolcro) at the court of Urbino brought about a profound change in artistic taste. One of the works from Piero’s Urbino period is The Flagellation, though it is still not clear when it was painted or how it is to be interpreted. For a long time it was believed that the young man in the centre of the picture represented Oddantonio, surrounded by evil counsellors. In this case, the painting would date from shortly after the Serafini conspiracy of 1444 which led to Oddantonio’s death. More recent research inclines to the view that the young man is Federico’s illegitimate son, Buonconte, with the podestà of Gubbio, Giovanni Bacci, on the right and Cardinal Bessarione on the left. In this case, the work would have political and religious implications: it could be read as a sort of invitation to Federico to support an expedition against the Turks. The interpretation put forward by Carlo Ginzburg (44), along with a date around 1459-60, would mean that Piero painted the picture at about the time he resumed work on the Arezzo fresco cycle after an interval spent in Rome. The diptych containing the twin portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino was completed in about 1474 and is now in the Uffizi in Florence. The profile views of Federico and Battista are compellingly realistic, and the same Flemish precision is brought to bear on the sumptuous rendering of jewellery and drapery. Federico’s qualities as man, military commander, and patron of the arts seem to emanate from the figure which, like Battista’s, entails precise, geometrical stylization. In the background there is a view of the countryside, though landscape plays a larger part on the reverse side of the diptych where the Duke and Duchess are seated on chariots drawn by cupids, in an allegorical representation of the triumphs of Federico. The Madonna and Saints (known as the San Bernardino altarpiece and now at the Brera Gallery in Milan) is more or less contemporary with the twin portraits in the Uffizi. It, too, has been the subject of painstaking analysis in an attempt to understand the symbolic meaning of the ostrich egg, suspended over the head of the Virgin, and to identify the other figures in the composition who may have been prominent members of the Urbino court. Federico is portrayed kneeling, with the light picking out the features of his armour, while the arrangement of the figures within the architectural space is a reminder of Piero’s mastery of mathematics and perspective - subjects on which he wrote two treatises, De perspectiva pingendi and De corporibus regularibus. Some art critics believe that the famous Ideal City - a perspective painting linked to the panels in Baltimore and Berlin - was painted sometime around the 1480s, while others feel that it belongs to the first twenty years of the sixteenth century. Although it has been variously attributed to Luciano Laurana, Piero della Francesca, Donato Bramante and Francesco di Giorgio Martini, critics are agreed in emphasising the complex and crucially important relation between mathematics and pictorial representation. It is no accident that Luca Pacioli, author of the Summa de Arithmetica, appears in company with Duke Guidobaldo in a painting of 1495 by Jacopo de’ Barbari. This harmonious blend of mathematical science and Flemish pictorial realism enabled Urbino art to scale heights which did not escape the attention of Giovanni Santi in the Disputa de la pictura section of his rhyming Cronica (45). Art scholars such as Dubois and Varese have recently reassessed the achievement of Giovanni Santi, father of Raphael and mentioned up to now only in connection with his poetical works. They claim that he should rightfully be considered one of the leading artists in fifteenth century Urbino (46). Giovanni Santi did not work for Federico, but for his son, Guidobaldo, and Elisabetta Gonzaga (47). He was almost certainly responsible for six of the Muses which used to decorate the small Temple of the Muses, located next to the Chapel of Forgiveness, both of which were situated (significantly) on the floor beneath the studiolo. Raphael himself is known to have painted the portraits (now in the Uffizi) of Guidobaldo and his wife, Elisabetta, as well as the missing portrait of Pietro Bembo who stayed in Urbino in 1506. While still in Urbino, Raphael must have been in sufficiently close contact with an older painter, Timoteo Viti, to invite him subsequently to help out with the decoration of the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome.

No summary of the artistic climate at the court of Urbino would be complete without a mention of Girolamo Genga, one of the archetypal Renaissance polymaths. Genga’s skills as a scene-painter and costume designer were exploited to the full in the sumptuous staging of Cardinal Bibbiena’s Calandria in the Throne Room of the Ducal Palace on 6 February 1513. Festivals and celebrations were intended to be an instrumentum regni, a statement of Montefeltro power and taste: theatrical performances were frequent, especially to celebrate weddings or the arrival of important guests. An allegorical piece, entitled The Triumph of Chaste Love, was staged by Giovanni Santi to welcome Frederick of Aragon, heir to the throne of Naples, in 1474 (48).

The consummation of Federico’s political career was the building of the Ducal Palace:

« that amalgam between sky and earth, between the rooted and the visionary, between attention to the concrete and real and contempt for the difficult, the impossible, the yet-to-be-attempted is a monument to his name, his role, and his view of life» (49).

Carlo Bo’s words are a telling summary of the significance that the palace had at the time and continues to have today. The origins of the building are still far from clear: it is not yet known whether there was a master plan at the outset or whether, in the early stages, the palace was successively enlarged and modified simply to meet the growing demands of the Duke. Such alterations point to more than just functional or architectural practicalities; they appear to have been dictated also by an inner need to express the ever-shifting relations between power, strength and beauty.

Work on the walls got under way in 1445 with the long eastern facade which partly incorporates previous buildings. Some scholars believe that the general overseer was the Florentine, Maso di Bartolomeo; others opt for a colleague of his, Michele di Giovanni, or Pasquino da Montepulciano. Although the early sections of the building underwent subsequent alterations, they clearly reveal the hand of an artist who was aware of Brunelleschi’s discoveries, even though there is still evidence of late-Gothic preciousness.

The palace had already grown to a considerable size when Federico appointed the Dalmatian architect, Luciano Laurana, main overseer in 1468. Laurana’s previous experience had been at the court of Mantua, where Alberti’s example was still very much alive. Now, at the court of Urbino, he was certainly influenced by Piero della Francesca. Laurana’s creation is inspired by a vision of the world in which nature and the works of man are in perfect harmony. In all probability he was responsible for designing the facade with the twin turrets, the main courtyard, the great staircase and various other interiors.

When he designed the two slender, graceful towers which magically offset the squat, bulky mass of the Albornoz fortress, Laurana was aiming to link two pre-existing buildings: the Castellare to the north and the residence of Count Antonio (the earliest Montefeltro dwelling, standing at the top of the Poggio, though only the portal survives, incorporated into the building which now houses the main university offices). The two buildings were separated by the brow of a hill with its slopes and variations in level. Laurana’s brilliant solution was to exploit the steep drop by buttressing the base with bastions capable of withstanding the thrust, and then building one of the towers lower than the other so that it rests on the incline itself. Rising into the air, the turret thus forms the apex of an enormous obtuse angle containing an immense recess to accommodate the hanging garden whose wall looks onto the hilly landscape. In this way Laurana ensured that the palace blended harmoniously with the surrounding countryside.

The main courtyard is surrounded by an elegant portico, with tall arcades supported on composite capitals. The Latin inscription, in handsome classical lettering, pays tribute to Duke Federico in his various guises as builder of the palace, indomitable warrior, and prince renowned for justice, mercy and liberality: iustitia, clementia, liberalitas, religio. The inscription continues around the upper storey, above the elegant windows separated by pilasters. The architectural purity of the courtyard - the clarity of its lines, its geometrical perfection, and a number of its decorative features - clearly owes a debt to Piero della Francesca.

The courtyard, or Cortile d’Onore, is the architectural hub of the palace, a masterpiece of spatial and volumetric harmony as a result of the satisfying perspective achieved by the interplay of columns and arches. From here the monumental staircase leads to the main floor, or piano nobile, whose luminous, beautifully proportioned interiors tell of a time when Urbino was in the forefront of scientific and mathematical humanism. After the spacious Throne Room, the route takes us through chambers which are smaller, more intimate and evocative: the Sala delle Veglie where some of the leading spirits of the age would meet to talk together, the Duchess’s apartment, and finally the spiritual heart of the palace: the study, or studiolo, panelled in marquetry by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, situated above the Chapel of Forgiveness and the Temple of the Muses in an eloquent synthesis of Christian and pagan culture.

In 1472 Laurana left Urbino, for reasons still unknown, to become Ferrante of Aragon’s «Master of Artillery» in Naples. Laurana’s west-facing towers and turrets, which might appear to be an architectural whim, actually hold the entire western façade together and were designed with an eye to the nature of the surrounding countryside. But the work was far from finished. The double loggia, or arched balconies, with the Gallo terrace beneath and the projecting base had yet to be built. The same is true of the southern façade with its loggia overlooking the Pasquino courtyard, the hanging gardens, the riding-school and the stables. Even the work of linking the new palace to the old Castellare had not been completed. The Sienese architect, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, took charge of these projects and left his mark in the new, much grander northern façade which symbolically links the earthly dwelling-place of the Montefeltro family with the divine power represented by the cathedral (50).

Francesco di Giorgio Martini was responsible for the loggias in the Pasquino courtyard, the hanging garden, and the Data stable block with the spiral ramp, designed for leading horses up from the market place of Mercatale to the ground floor of the palace. The Sienese architect’s skills in mechanics and military engineering meant that he was able to devise solutions to the functional difficulties of his task which far transcend the stock-in-trade of the Renaissance artist.

Finally, the apartment on the second floor was completed in 1536 by Girolamo Genga.

A study of documentary sources suggests that the earlier sections of the palace boasted a range of technological provisions of a complexity needed to meet the demands of the sort of court that Urbino was becoming. This, in turn, supports the case for a unified master plan which could only have been the work of Laurana: a project developed in tandem with Federico’s political programme. Research has also stressed the close relation between the Ducal Palace and the new, humanist town-plan of the city - itself an integral part of the Duke’s programme. Lastly, the relation between the Ducal Palace and the pre-existing buildings on the site has finally been clarified: they were generally incorporated into the new structure (which often involved ingenious conversions), but always in line with the overall design (51).

The Duke’s library was located beside the main courtyard: the wealth and quality of the illuminated manuscripts which it housed are a further tribute to this humanist prince. Federico’s library is the product of a close network of cultural relations with Florence (especially with Lorenzo de’ Medici), with Ferrara (miniaturists from the Este court are known to have carried out work for Federico), and with Milan, Cesena and Rome (given the friendship between the Duke and Cardinal Bessarione). This network enabled Federico to have large numbers of manuscripts copied. It was around 1464 that he started to build up the library systematically. It is true that before that time literature had circulated freely at the Urbino court and his predecessors had begun to amass classical works, but it was Federico who first imposed an order on the collection. According to the Old Catalogue - which is the library’s earliest inventory and topographical in nature (the first part dates back to before 1488 and contains a description of the codexes housed in the main library, arranged by language, subject matter, literary genre, and author) - at the time of Federico’s death, the library contained some 900 manuscripts (52). Many of these had been acquired through the Florentine bookseller, Vespasiano da Bisticci («expense being no object»), many had been donated, and many had been plundered, including the superlative Jewish Bible from Volterra («codex magnus et pulcherrimus in toto fortasse orbe unicus»). The collection included the works of classical writers and grammarians, philosophers and doctors of the Church, with pride of place going to texts on astrology, arithmetic, medicine, music and sculpture. The leading «modern» writers were also represented. As well as these books from a variety of sources, there were those which Federico Veterani and numerous other scribes copied out in the scriptorium, working alongside miniaturists of the Ferrara school like Franco de’ Russi. It was only after 1489-90 that the librarian, Agapito, updated the Old Catalogue with a description of the books to be found in the «alia bibliotheca», a sort of anteroom to the main library, used to store incomplete volumes or manuscripts which were less than perfect from an aesthetic point of view. We know that Federico was always on the lookout for excellence - the exquisite manuscript, the unique work of art - and had an aversion to printing; in fact, only fifty printed books are listed in the Old Catalogue. This explains the famous bindings which effectively made each work unique from the outset: leather bindings, bindings in silk velvet, splendidly coloured and more for show than for protection (53). When the learned humanist, Astenio di Macerata, was librarian from 1470 until 1480, the choice and quality of the manuscripts was even more exquisite and erudite. Scholars from Italy and throughout Europe were allowed unrestricted access to the library where they could admire the education and refinement implicit in a collection which was in no way inferior to those of the House of Aragon and the Vatican.

Federico’s cultural policy set a high value on harmony, order and intelligence, and benefited from the constant attendance of Ottaviano degli Ubaldini who is known to have advised him on artistic and cultural matters. We have already mentioned Ottaviano degli Ubaldini as the man who took over the reins of government after Federico’s death - until the young Guidobaldo came of age - and headed the court which Baldassare Castiglione was to immortalize in the pages of The Courtier. The library continued to expand under Guidobaldo until it became a very desirable collection indeed. Recent research - especially that carried out by Luigi and Maria Moranti (54) - has provided some useful clues as to why the library was transferred «in its entirety» to Rome when the duchy died out in 1631. As stated in the will of Francesco Maria II della Rovere, the library was the property of the Community of Urbino, but a clause stipulated that in the event either of the Community failing to comply with the provisions of the will, or of a single book going missing, ownership of the library would pass to the Company of the Grotta di Casteldurante, where the last Duke of Urbino stayed for long periods and where he was buried. The raison d’être of the Venerable Company of the Grotta was exclusively religious, and it is not known why the Duke left these instructions. What is known is that the ensuing dispute between the Carracciolini friars of Casteldurante (the modern-day Urbania) and the Community of Urbino was sparked off when the latter demanded the return of the books and manuscripts which the Duke had carried away with him when he decided to live out his last years in Urbania. The will clearly mentions a bequest of books to the priests, referred to as the Regular Minor Clergy of the Cross of Casteldurante, but it is equally explicit about returning the manuscripts and drawings to Urbino. After complex negotiations between the then librarian and compiler of the 1616 alphabetical index, Vittorio Venturelli, and the «super-subtle friars», the texts were returned to Urbino in April 1631.

From this time on, Urbino’s financial difficulties, growing papal interest, and the personal involvement of citizens of Urbino resident in Rome all contributed to swell rumours that the library was to be sold. The main actor in the drama, the Chigi Pope Alexander VII, was a keen collector and valued the advice of the famous humanist, archaeologist and bibliophile, Luca Hostenio, who had already been employed by Cardinal Barberini. It was on Cardinal Barberini’s recommendation that Hostenio had visited Urbino in 1643. An abridged edition of his diary - published by Moranti(55) - suggests just how impressed he was by the quality of the collection. When Alexander V11 became pope in 1653, Hostenio was one of his closest counsellors and set about building up that network of contacts which was to lead to the library being transferred to Rome. It is worth remembering that the pope had no claim to the library; it was the personal property of the Duke and he had left it to the community of Urbino. The negotiations between Hostenio and the Cardinal Legate, Homodei, began in private but were forced into the open when rumours of a sale grew more and more insistent. At a meeting of the city council on 23 June 1657, the chief councillor, Flaminio Castellani, briefed his fellow citizens on the problem and advised them that the library «was more for show than for profit, more suitable for a prince than a commoner», and presented a series of demands which proved to be as modest as the sum of 10,000 scudi paid for such a priceless heritage. Once the town council had decided, the sale went ahead with unprecedented speed, as if to pre-empt a change of mind on the part of an already resentful populace. The reasons for transferring the library to Rome (put forward in the apostolic brief of 7 August 1657, addressed to the Cardinal Legate, Homodei) are no more than a pretext: it was badly looked after; the town could not afford to take care of it; it was the subject of a dispute between Urbino and the Compagnia della Grotta in Casteldurante; it would be more fittingly housed in the Vatican, seeing that it was of no use to Urbino. It reads like a set of trumped up excuses - an impression supported by the discovery of fresh documents which prove that the pope acted (first secretly and then openly) to ensure that the library was transported to Rome, in all possible haste and regardless of inclement weather, between October and December of the same year, 1657.

Duke Federico’s library was entirely absorbed into the Vatican Library where it now constitutes the fond of Urbino Latin Codexes and Urbino Greek Codices.

As we saw at the outset, Urbino was not immune from the political divisions and instability which dogged most Italian states in the early years of the fifteenth century. Even after the more settled interval (which Federico had played no small part in bringing about) Italy again experienced upheavals as the cultural axis shifted towards Rome and Venice. And yet, it is precisely during this period of change and uncertainty - when the duchy had lost its cultural supremacy and could no longer boast effective political leadership - that the legend of Urbino began to take shape in the writings of Ariosto, Bembo, Castiglione and Tasso. Historians and literary critics have closely analysed this phenomenon, and the «legend of Urbino» is a convenient shorthand term to suggest the importance which the organization and practices of the Urbino court were to have for later ages.

As early as 1516, in the first edition of Orlando Furioso, even the labyrinthine complications of the plot cannot hamper the characters in their quest for the locus amoenus - the pleasant place, the congenial setting - so beloved of Renaissance hedonists, intent on following their destinies. So it is that Rinaldo’s journey contains a description which not only pinpoints the geographical location of Urbino but pays tribute to the courtesy and hospitality of its noble household:

After changing horses and riders,

Arimino spends the evening there,

But rather than await the morning in Montefiore,

Daybreak sees him almost at Urbino.

This was long before the time of Federico,

Of Isabetta, of the good Guido,

Francesco Maria, and Leonora,

Who, with kindly insistence, free of haughtiness,

Would have urged so famous a warrior to accept

Their hospitality for more then one evening;

As they have done for many years, and do so yet

With ladies and knights who pass that way.

From here, with unslackened rein,

Rinaldo dismounts at Cagli, by the direct route,

Over the mountain, cleft by the Metauro and the Gauno,

He crosses the Apennines and no longer has the rivers to his right;

He passes through the lands of the Obrians and Etruscans, ever southwards to Rome [...](56).

If the court of Urbino is merely glanced at in Orlando Furioso, it takes centre stage in The Courtier and accounts for the influence that the book was to have on the individual cultures of countries throughout Europe. The present author is conscious, here, of a debt to Amedo Quondam and Angela Carella whose research into this aspect of the work’s importance simply cannot be ignored (57).

Baldassare Castiglione came to Urbino in 1504 and stayed there in the employ of Guidobaldo until the latter’s death in 1508, after which he continued at the court until 1513 under the rule of Francesco Maria della Rovere. From Urbino he then moved to Rome as della Rovere’s ambassador, and it was in Rome (or rather, between Rome and Mantua) that he completed The Courtier in the five years from 1513 to 1518. The work had already been drafted in Urbino and would be published in 1528. Castiglione had once before celebrated the bucolic idyll of the Urbino court in his eclogue, Tirsi, but the epistle to King Henry VII of England - Ad sacratissimum Britanniae regem Henricum, de Guidubaldo Urbini duce - is the occasion for idealizing the court and the person of the Duke, sublimating (as has been pointed out) «a critical situation, though without evading it» (58). Written in 1508, while still grieving for the recent loss of Guidobaldo, Castiglione’s masterpiece commemorates the life of his patron in terms of that perfectly achieved balance between arms and letters which had, in fact, ended with the death of Federico in 1482. Though fortune had refused to smile on Guidobaldo’s exploits in the field - so The Courtier suggests - his virtues were nonetheless such that he was able to continue his military career. However, this rather forced tribute cannot conceal the fact that, far from being in the same league as his father, Guidobaldo was not even up to defending his own territories. Hence the picture of Guidobaldo to emerge is one of a melancholy, somewhat rarefied humanist prince: enlightened in dealings with his subjects, elegant in address, refined in his cultural leanings and fluent in Greek and Latin. It is a portrait which tends to remove Guidobaldo from the history of his own times and consign him to a past age which can never return. But Castiglione is not (or not merely) indulging his typically Renaissance taste for pen-portraits; he seems concerned to flesh out a sort of blueprint, a model (albeit outdated) of an ideal prince and his court, almost as if he wanted to contrast it with other models and other courts, unable to match the integrity and refinement of the Duke and court of Urbino.

The fascination of The Courtier lies in the way in which a close historical survey opts to offset the calamities of the present by a nostalgic evocation of a past in which the court is viewed as the ideal setting - a place of such perfection as can no longer be achieved, though it can be partially reclaimed in the act of writing about it:

«This paradise is not lost. Its speaks powerfully to the present age, and its benefits are available immediately and in the most direct manner. As if in reading, quoting, reproducing, we were to dispense with all the explanations of the dialogues, all the narrative frameworks (the subject, the distant past) and release the period of the debate from such restrictions: that period would be the present, that present which becomes the real time when we consider how The Courtier has been received in Europe» (59).

This is why The Courtier - a painful, questing work - has been read, absorbed and adopted by European culture as the springboard for all subsequent debate on questions relating to the court. It has been made available in countless editions and translations (60) and served both as a term of comparison in assessing alternative courtly models and as a catalyst for numerous other texts. Such texts, however, lack the close organization of Castiglione’s work and its representative importance in encapsulating the essence of a particular culture; they tend, if anything, to deal with partial or isolated matters. Such topics range from Galateo to Civil Conversation and punctuate the progress of European cultural history which, in turn, continues to insist on the supremacy of Castiglione’s original, or «the archtext» as Quondam calls it (61). To ask why The Courtier has always been seen in Europe as the seminal work on the subject - the tree which has never ceased to bear countless different fruits in widely differing seasons - is to realize that it shows Renaissance culture seeking out and examining the reasons for its own existence. It shows that culture appreciating that its very survival depends on its identity with the courtly setting in which it first flourished, as does the survival of the courtly classes who were bringing their moral and intellectual qualities to bear on the problem of redefining their role, also in political terms. Castiglione was too acute an observer not to have noticed that co-operation between prince and courtier based on munificence and courtesy - in normal relations, in commissioning artworks, in organizing everyday entertainments - had given way to a condition of dependence, while the courtier (once part of the extended «family» of the prince) had been tending to play the part of the prince’s officer, or quite simply his servant. As presented in The Courtier, relations between the prince and the men of distinction with whom he surrounded himself could not have been more different:

«When Julius II became Pope, the Duke was made Captain of the Church; during which time, and following his usual style, he saw to it that his household was filled with very noble and worthy gentlemen, with whom he lived on the most familiar terms, delighting in their company where the pleasure he gave others was not less than that which he had from them, being well versed in both Latin and Greek and combining affability and wit with the knowledge of an infinitude of things. Besides this, so much did the greatness of his spirit spur him on that, even though he could not engage personally in chivalric activities as he had once done, he still took the greatest pleasure in seeing others so engaged; and by his words, now criticizing and now praising each man according to his deserts, he showed clearly how much judgement he had in such matters. Wherefore, in jousts and tournaments, in riding, in the handling of every sort of weapon, as well as in revelries, in games, in musical performances, in short, in all activities befitting noble knights, everyone strove to show himself such as to deserve to be thought worthy of his noble company» (62).

The need for courtly activities and for the very spirit of the place to survive meant that even when they were a mere memory - as in the poignant decline of the Montefeltro court - it was nonetheless vital for the court to continue to be seen as «the abode of joyousness», so that if the Duke was indisposed and withdrew from company, then it was left to the Duchess to draw out her guests:

«Here, then, gentle discussions and innocent pleasantries were heard, and on everyone’s face a jocund gaiety could be seen depicted, so much so that this house could be called the very abode of joyousness. Nor do I believe that the sweetness that is had from a beloved company was ever savoured in any other place as it once was there. For, not to speak of the great honour it was for each of us to serve such a lord as I have described above, we all felt a supreme happiness arise within us whenever we came into the presence of the Duchess. And it seemed that this was a chain which bound us all together in love, in such sweet wise that never was there concord of will or cordial love between brothers greater than that which was there among us all. The same was among the ladies, with whom one had very free and most honourable association, for to each it was permitted to speak, sit, jest and laugh with whom he pleased; but the reverence that was paid to the wishes of the Duchess was such that this same liberty was a very great check; nor was there anyone who did not esteem it the greatest pleasure in the world to please her and the greatest grief to displease her. For which reason, most decorous customs were there combined with the greatest liberty, and games and laughter in her presence were seasoned not only with witty jests but with a gracious and sober dignity; for that modesty and grandeur which ruled over all the acts, words, and gestures of the Duchess, in jest and laughter, caused anyone seeing her for the first time to recognize her as a very great lady. And, in impressing herself thus upon those about her, it seemed that she tempered us all to her own quality and fashion, wherefore each one strove to imitate her style, deriving, as it were, a rule of fine manners from the presence of so great and virtuous a lady...» (63).

This style of life seems to inhabit an unreal dimension, beyond time, beyond history, beyond death itself: it invents a code of behaviour that can be repeated indefinitely in other places and at other times. But, unlike Urbino, the courts which were to succeed it would rarely be housed in palaces which so perfectly symbolize the values which they espouse. The greatness and splendour of Federico’s court is expressed in the almost obsessive use of monograms, visibly present in the inscriptions around the main courtyard, and summed up in Castiglione’s tribute to that shrine of humanist culture, the palace library:

«Among his other laudable deeds, he built on the rugged site of Urbino the most beautiful palace to be found anywhere in all Italy, and he furnished it so well with every suitable thing that it seemed not a palace but a city in the form of a palace; and furnished it not only with what is customary, such as silver vases, wall hangings of the richest cloth of gold, silk, and other like things, but for ornament he added countless ancient statues of marble and bronze, rare paintings, and musical instruments of every sort; nor did he wish to have anything there that was not most rare and excellent. Then, at great expense, he collected many very excellent and rare books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, all of which he adorned with gold and silver, deeming these to be the supreme excellence of his great palace (64).

The Courtier’s European dimension is not, then, a question of its vast circulation or the reception it has been accorded; rather, it lies in the fact that the book served as «the basic grammar for courtly society up to the French Revolution - and even after, with appropriate modifications to suit the new middle-class order» (65). It provided a model of the state which did not deny the absolutist qualities of that state, but neither did it rule out the possibility that the rhetorical powers of the gifted courtier might compensate for the errors of rulers in times to come. Extolling the court of Urbino was also a way of pointing up, by implication, the political ineptitude and corrupt practices of the other courts. The ideal of «good government» was a reminder of that need for peace and stability which was in direct proportion to the unsettled climate of the times throughout Europe. What The Courtier proposes is an ethical and political ideal which, though corresponding to no historical reality, holds Urbino up as the model of a perfectly achieved symbiosis of military and humanist virtues: a union and an ideal which could only have been fostered in a courtly environment and communicated by means of a courtly language which confers, as it were, cultural approbation and assimilates contributions from different geographical locations. The influence of the model recommended in The Courtier is even more impressive if seen from a European viewpoint. The dedicatory letter to De Silva (66) defines the terms of a debate which transcends the confines of a regional state and proves relevant at a national and even supranational level. It is no accident that The Courtier was to be the model for a class which - with its own characteristics and professionalism - would play a leading role in the creation of the modern state.

Little needs to be added to round off this necessarily simplified account, but mention really should be made of Pietro Bembo who was in Urbino from 1506, and so just before the death of Guidobaldo. The literary discussions then in progress at the court of Urbino enabled Bembo to clarify his ideas about the late fifteenth century cultural tradition in the vernacular and to turn his attention to the problem of the Italian language; although his Prose della volgar lingua was only published in 1525, it was originally drafted during his stay in Urbino. A dialogue entitled De Guido Ubaldo Feretrio deque Elisabetha Gonzagia Urbini ducibus, written between 1508 and 1510 (though not published until 1530), is set in Vatican circles and features various characters who pay tribute to the exemplary life of the Duke and commemorate his death in a funeral oration. Bembo, too, considered Guidobaldo a magnanimous but unfortunate prince who continued to embody those humanist ideals and that magnificence so highly prized by his father. Magnificence, liberality and courtesy were the hallmarks of his relations with poets, and there must still have been poets at the court of the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II della Rovere, when, in the summer of 1578 (67), Tasso finds solace in the shade of a mighty oak after years of wandering and hardship (68). Legend has it that he composed this section of his Petrarchan poem to the Metauro in nearby Fermignano::

Child of the great Apennines,

Small yet glorious,

And more resplendent by far in name

Than the place whence I come -

A fleeting pilgrim -

To your friendly, welcoming banks

For safety and repose.

May the high oak which you bathe and make fruitful

With your sweet vital humours,

So that it spreads its branches, closing out sea and hill,

Cover me with its shade.

O sacred, kindly shade, which others do not forgo

For their cool, tranquil repose,

Gather me into your depths and seal me there

So that I may be hidden from that pitiless

Blind goddess who yet sees me,

Though I hide from her in the mountains and valleys,

And on lonely ,untrodden paths

I walk by night;

And she so shoots her darts at me as to show

That she has as many eyes probing my ills

As she has arrows.... (69).

1) The Courtier’s influence on European culture is attested by the translations which appeared in Spain, France and England shortly after its publication in Venice in the spring of 1528. Juan Boscan’s Spanish translation came out in 1534; a French translation by J. Colin d’Auxerre was published in 1537, followed in 1580 by G. Chappuis’s Parfait courtisan (now included in: B. Castiglione, Le livre de courtisan by Alain Pous, Paris, Flamarrion, 1987); S. T. Hoby’s English translation appeared in 1560. Besides La corte e il «Cortegiano» I: La scena del testo, II: Un modello europeo, Roma, Bulzoni, 1980, the following deal with The Courtier’s European impact on a country by country basis: M. Morreale, El mundo del «Cortesan» in «Revista de filologia espanola» , XLII (1958-59); Castiglione e Boscan: el ideal cortesano en el Rinacimento espanol, Madrid, Imprenta de D’Aguirre Torre, 1959; P.Toldo, Le courtisan dans la littérature francaise et ses rapports avec l’oeuvre de Castiglione, in «Archiv fur des Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen» , CIV and CV (1900); W. Schrinner, Castiglione und die Englische Renaissance, Berlin, Junker und Dunnhaupt, 1939; R. Klesczewski, Die Franzosische Ubersetzungen des «Cortigiano» von B. C. Heidelberg, Winter 1966; Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, edited by R. H. Hanning and R. Rosand, Newhaven, Yale University Press, 1983.

 

2) From Baldassare Castiglione’s dedicatory letter to Don Michele De Silva, cf.B.Castiglione, Il libro del Cortegiano,Milano,Garzanti,1981,p.7 with introduction by Amedeo Quondam. Subsequent quotations have been taken from this edition.

3) For adverse criticism of The Courtier’s «lavish coreographic façade, its decorative display, superficial opulence and effimeral splendour», see the introduction by B. Maier to the UTET edition (Turin, 1955, p. 11) which also contains a selection of Castiglione’s letters and minor works.

4) J.Burckhardt,La civiltà del Rinascimento in Italia,Firenze,Sansoni,1955,pp.44-45.

5) The word Marches is of Germanic origin. It was originally used to describe a thickly wooded, mountainous region; later it came to stand for a borderland.

6) B.Castiglione,Il libro del Cortegiano cit.,pp. 17-18.

7) Varro, Pliny the Elder, Pomponius Mela and Procopius of Cesarea all testify to the early origins of the city. Remains of the city walls and fragments of pottery from Roman times recently came to light during restoration work on the cellars of the Ducal Palace.

8) At this time, Ravenna was the headquarters of the imperial governor, or exarch. Italy had become a province on the outskirts of an empire which was now centred on the Bosphorus..

9) The Laudario was published in a facsimile edition by G.Grimaldi, in "Studi romanzi",vol.XII,1915,pp. 1-96; cf. R.Bettarini, Jacopone e il Laudario di Urbino, Firenze,Sansoni,1969.

10) The Peace of Lodi ended the war of succession to the Duchy of Milan after the death of Francesco Maria Visconti. Francesco Sforza was the driving force behind a «holy league» binding Milan, Venice and Florence. Other signatories included the pope, Alfonso of Aragon, and a number of states situated intra terminos italicos.

11) Egidio d' Albornoz was acting on the full authority of Pope Innocent VI (1352-62) in forcing the Malatesti "to come to terms, which, however, were not too disadvantageous given that their claim to Rimini, Pesaro and Fano was recognized, subject to payment of an annual tribute [...] The Montefeltro only held onto Urbino and Cagli as papal vicars». Cf. L.Salvatorelli,Sommario della storia d'Italia,Torino,Einaudi,1969,p. 263.

12) Cf. G.Franceschini, I Montefeltro,Milano, Dall'Oglio, 1970, p. 23.

13) Cf. G.Chittolini,Su alcuni aspetti dello Stato di Federico, in Federico di Montefeltro.Lo Stato/Le Arti/La cultura cit., p. 76.

14) Cf. Appendix 1.

15) For the Serafini conspiracy (so-called after the noble family which led the intrigue) cf. G.Franceschini,I Montefeltro cit., p. 425.

16) For relations between the Urbino comune and the Montefeltro signoria over the question of civic autonomy, cf. W.Tommasoli, La vita di Federico da Montefeltro.1422-1482, Urbino, Argalia,1995( but already published in 1978) ,pp. 43-43. All quotations are from the more recent edition.

For these problems relating to the subdivision up of the state, cf. the above-mentioned work by Chittolini,Su alcuni aspetti dello stato di Federico, pp. 85-87.

17) Federico was probably the offspring of a relationship between Guidantonio di Montefeltro and a lady-in-waiting, but for other theories and rumours cf. G. Franceschini,I Montefeltro cit.,p. 431.

18) Cfr. W.Tommasoli, La vita di Federico da Montefeltro cit.pp. 12-13.

19) Gentile Brancaleoni, daughter of the Lords of the Massa Trabaria, married Federico on 2 December 1437.

20) Cf. G.Franceschini,I Montefeltro cit., p. 434. For the transformation of mercenary bands into companies of fortune, at the time when the signorie were taking shape, see the above-mentioned summary by L. Salvatorelli, pp. 216-218.

21) The fortress of San Leo, long considered impregnable, was scaled. Cf. W. Tommasoli, La vita cit.,p.19.

22) Cf. A.K.Isaacs,Condottieri,stati e territori nell'Italia centrale,in Federico di Montefeltro cit.,pp. 57 e 59.

23) Cf. P.Paltroni,Commentari della vita et gesti dell'Illustrissimo Federico duca d'Urbino, edited by W.Tommasoli,Urbino,Accademia Raffello 1966; G.Santi,La vita e le gesta di Federico di Montefeltro duca d'Urbino.Poem in terza rima (cod.Vat.Ottob.lat.1305) edited by L.Michelini Tocci, Città del Vaticano 1985,vol.2 (Santi’s Cronaca had already been published in 1893 by H.Holzinger at Stutgart); F.Filelfo,Commentari della vita e delle imprese di Federico da Montefeltro, edited by G.Zannoni,Tolentino 1901; Vespasiano da Bisticci,Le Vite, edited by A.Greco, Firenze, Istituto Nazionale di Sudi sul Rinascimento, 1970,vol.1,pp.355-415.

24) Cf. n.10.

25) Cf. W.Tommasoli,La vita cit., p. 121.

26) For Battista, besides the pages in the above-mentioned volume by Tommasoli, pp. 128-29, see the volume by M.Bonvini Mazzanti,Battista Sforza Montefeltro,"Una principessa"nel Rinascimento italiano,Urbino,QuattroVenti 1993.

27) For the fortresses in the duchy see G.Volpe,Rocche e fortificazioni del Ducato di Urbino,l'esperienza martiniana e l'architettura militare di transizione,Urbino 1982.

28) Cf. W.Tommasoli,La vita cit.,p. 239.

29) The reference is once again to Tommasoli, pp. 332-33.

30) The quotation is taken from the work of B. Baldi (1553-1617), citizen of Urbino and author of Vita e fatti di Federigo di Montefeltro duca di Urbino, pubished in 1824 by Francesco Zuccardi in Rome (quoted from the unpublished ms. in the Biblioteca Albani), pp. 266-268.

31) The Montefeltro rule in Urbino effectively began with Antonio (1377-1404) and continued through Guidantonio (1404-42), Oddantonio (1442-44), Federico(1444-82) and Guidobaldo(1482-1508).

32) A ternary and a religious sonnet by Antonio da Montefeltro (c. 1345 -1404) were published by B.Borghesi, Rime del Conte Antonio di Montefeltro, Rimini, Marsoner e Grandi, 1819. M.Santagata(cf. M.Santagata-S.Carrai,La lirica di corte nell'Italia del Quattrocento,Milano,Franco Angeli, 1993, p. 47) claims that "these are the only surviving XIV century vernacular poems by an author known to be from Urbino».

For material on the Dantesque poem, cf. L.Michelini Tocci,Introduzione aI dante Urbinate della Biblioteca Vaticana (codice urbinate latino 365),Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,1965. G.Vitaletti (Per la fortuna di Dante nel sec.XV."Il Pellegrino" di Gaugello Gaugelli"(codice Vat.Urbinate 692) in "Il Giornale dantesco" vol. XXIV, Firenze 1921,pp. 217-226 e pp. 291-327) published this work by the notary, Gaugelli Gaugelli (active at the court of Urbino in the second half of the fifteenth century) in which the city and palace are described in a manner reminiscent of Dante, and an outline is given of the Montefeltro family genealogy is outlined; the following verses are taken from p. 304:

" Do not wonder if I ask you,

Is this the city that you spoke of

Called Urbino, which you are seeking?

I remember that you promised

to show me all the districts

The first time that you saw me.

Now see to it that, through your kindness,

I may view everything while you describe

The special beauties of this town».

We entered by the Monte gate,

I showed him the handsome market-place,

Lavaggine with its lovely fountain,

The Valbona road on the other side.

We passed through the Maya gate as far as the Court,

With that square in front of the bishop’s palace,

«There are still two gates I have to show you -

Saint Bartolo’s and Saint Paul’s - ,

But it will be too tiring for you to reach them».

Thus discoursing together,

The pilgrim and I, proceeding the while,

Went to look at the clock and the hour.

«I still want to show you the fine palace,»

Said I to the pilgrim, «where there resides

The lord whose house does him honour».

I showed him the wide staircase,

The newly finished bedrooms,

Beautifully frescoed or painted white,

The rooms below with their delightful gardens

For the summer,

And the other rooms that are lived in above.

33) Battista’s poems number close on two dozen, cf. F. Zambrini, Laude et altre rime spirituali di MadonnaBattista Malatesti,Imola,Galeati,1947; G.Vanzolini,Rime inedite di Battista da Montefeltro,Pesaro,Nobili,1864. For Battista’s poetry and Guidantonio’s, the standard reference is to the essay by M.Santagata, Fra Rimini e Urbino:i prodromi del petrarchismo cortigiano, in M.Santagata-S.-Carrai,La lirica di corte cit.,pp. 55-56.

34) Cf. M.Santagata,Fra Rimini e Urbino cit., p. 59.

35) Cf.M.Santagata,Fra Rimini e Urbino cit., p. 93.

36) The critical edition of the Canzoniere of Angelo Galli, edited by G.Nonni, Urbino, Accademia Raffaello 1987, has done much to bring about a revival of interest in one of the major fifteenth century vernacular lyricists.

37)Cf. M.Filetico, Iocundissime disputationes, Modena, Mucchi,1992, edited by G. Arbizzoni.

38) Mention has already been made of the recent edition of G. Santi’s Cronaca in verse by Michelini Tocci; for il Filelfo cf. F.Filelfo, Commentari della vita e delle imprese di Federico da Montefeltro, edited by G.Zannoni, Tolentino,1901; an edition of the Mercatello poet, Antonio Nuti’s work, Feltresco Mercatello, is shortly to be edited and published by G.Cerboni Baiardi who has based it on the Vatican ms., Urb.Lat.785, dated 24 July 1480.

39)Cf. A.Chastel,I centri del Rinascimento,Milano 1965, p. 41 e pp. 46-50.

40) For a modern edition of this work, cf. L.Pacioli,Summa de Arithmetica Geometria Proporzioni et Proporzionalità, Roma, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato 1994.

41) Besides the Vite of Vespasiano da Bisticci, cf. P.Castelli, "Cronache dei loro tempi":cultura alla corte dei Montefeltro dal Xv al XVI secolo, in Arte e cultura nella provincia di Pesaro e Urbino dalle origini a oggi,Venezia,Marsilio,1986, pp. 188-9.

42)Cf. N.Guidobaldi, La musica di Federico:Immagini e suoni alla corte di Urbino, Firenze,Olschki 1995.

43) For the Profanation of the Host, cf. M.Aronberg Lavin,The altar of Corpus Domini in Urbino:Paolo Uccello, Joos Van Ghent, Piero Della Francesca, in"The Art Bulletin", XLIX(1967), pp. 1-24.

44)Cf. C.Ginzburg, Indagini su Piero, Torino, Einaudi, 1981, pp. 94-5, but also AA.VV, Città e corte nell'Italia di Piero della Francesca. Proceedings of the international study conference, held in Urbino, 4-7 October 1992, edited by C.Cieri Via, Venezia, Marsilio, 1996.

45) In chap.LXXXXI, entitled On the Departure of the Duke of Urbino for Milan and in his Treatise on Painting, Giovanni Santi’s verse Cronaca offers a broad survey of leading fifteenth century painters. The following quotation is a translation of verses from the edition by L. Michelini Tocci cit., pp. 660-677):

At Bruges, among the most highly praised,

Was the great Jan van Eyck and his follower Rogier van der Weyden,

Endowed with manifold gifts,

And so excellent were they in their mastery of colour

That they very often surpassed nature herself.

But in Italy,in this present age,

There has been the worthy Gentile da Fabriano,

Giovanni da Fiesole, a friar ardent in his love of good;

And in bronze medals and painting,Pisanello

Fra Lippo Lippi and Francesco Pesselli,

Domenico known as Veneziano,

Masaccio and Andrea del Sarto, Paolo Uccello,

Antonio e Piero, such great draughtsmen,

Piero della Francesca, older than those two

youngsters in years and in temperament:

Leonardo da Vinci e Perugino,

Pier dalla Pieve, who is a divine painter,

Ghirlandaio and the young Filippino,

Sandro Botticelli, and Luca Signorelli

From Cortona, of wayward spirit and genius.

 

46) On Giovanni Santi as a painter, cf. A. Schmarson, Giovanni Santi: Der Vater Raphaels, Berlin 1887; R.Dubois,Giovanni Santi peintre et Chroniqueur à Urbin, au Xve siècle, Bordeaux 1971; R.Varese, Giovanni Santi, Pesaro, Cassa di Risparmio, 1994.

47) A.Luzio-R.Renier, Mantova e Urbino(1471-1539), Torino-Roma, Uroux 1893,

is still useful to consult on Elisabetta Gonzaga, wife of Guidobaldo.

48) A.Saviotti, Una rappresentazione allegorica in Urbino nel 1474, in "Atti e memorie della Regia Accademia Petrarca di Scienze Lettere ed Arti", Arezzo, I(1920), pp. 180-236.

49) The quotation is from the speech made in 1982 by Carlo Bo, Chancellor of the University of Urbino, at the celebrations commemorating the fourth centenary of the death of Federico da Montefeltro. The address is contained in «A casa di Federico», "Pesaro Urbino", 1982,3 , p. 25.

50) F.Negroni, Il Duomo di Urbino, Urbino, Accademia Raffaello 1993, contains information which throws light on the complex question of the construction of the Ducal Palace and the cathedral. The second ballad of the first of Antonio Nuti’s unpublished poems (octaves 7-8) has this to say about the Ducal Palace:

My hand shakes and I dare not begin

To talk of the beauty of such a palace;

I know not which part to describe first,

I know not whether to start by telling the proportions.

A book and more could be written

About the splendours of each room

(this one, light blue; that one silver and gold)

For never was such beautiful workmanship seen before.

I do not believe the world can boast its equal,

So long it is and broad, and tall, and strong,

And immeasurable was the expense

Of creating so fine a court.

Neither Priam, Solomon, nor King Darius,

Nor all the emperors of past ages,

Ever built such a palace; and I say

To those who are not acquainted with it

That it is worthy to be called a heaven on earth.

51) The various stages in the building of the Ducal Palace are dealt with by L.Serra in Le varie fasi costruttive del Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, in "Bollettino d'arte", 10(1931), 1-2. pp. 433-447; P.Rotondi, Il Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, Urbino, Istituto Statale d'Arte, 1950; L.Arcangeli, Parti ornamentali;spostamenti e adattamenti, in Palazzo ducale di Urbino.Storia di un museo, Urbino,1977,pp. 39ff.

52)Cf. L.Michelini Tocci, La formazione della Biblioteca di Federico da Montefeltro: codici contemporanei e libri a stampa; M.Moranti,Organizzazione della Biblioteca di Federico da Montefeltro,in Federico di Montefeltro cit.,pp. 9-49.

53) The standard reference is still the volume on Federico di Montefeltro:La cultura, especially pp.51-60: A.M.Adorisio - C.Federici, Aspetti tipologici delle ligature feltresche.

54) Cf. M.Moranti-L.Moranti, Il trasferimento dei "Codices Urbinates" alla Biblioteca Vaticana, Urbino, Accademia Raffaello, 1981.

55) Cf. Frammento del Diario di Luca Holstenio scritto durante il viaggio da Perugia a Urbino nel 1643,in Il trasferimento cit.,p. 155.

56) Cf. L. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso,43, CXLVIII- CXLIX,Milano-Napoli, Ricciardi, 1954, p. 1139.

57) We refer to the Introduzione by Amedeo Quondam to the above-mentioned edition of Il libro del Cortegiano and to the essay by Angela Carella,Urbino e le Marche, in Letteratura Italiana.storia e geografia.L'età moderna, Torino, Einaudi 1988, pp. 473-520.

58) Cf. A. Carella, Urbino e le Marche cit. p. 491.

59) Cf. A. Quondam Introduzione a Il libro del Cortegiano cit., p. XXXVII.

60) Cf. n. 1.

61) Cf. A. Quondam, Introduzione to il Libro del Cortegiano cit., p. XLIV.

62) Cf. B. Castiglione, Il libro del Cortegiano cit., pp. 20-21.

63)Cf. B. Castiglione, Il libro del Cortegiano cit. pp. 21-22.

64)Cf. B. Castiglione, Il libro del Cortegiano cit., pp. 18-19. However, it may be useful to refer once again to the second ballad of Antonio Nuti’s first poem (octaves 26,29,32):

I hear it has two hundred and fifty rooms

Expertly arranged by astute minds;

Six hundred and sixty doors and windows,

Bedrooms and reception rooms, loggias and courtyards,

Forty chimneys which are never smoky,

Wonderfully elegant anterooms and living rooms,

Well positioned stables, and likewise kitchens,

Cellars for wine, grain and flour.

.........

And here are found books on every subject,

Seven eighths of them on sheep parchment,

The large Bible and the new smaller one

In Greek as well as Latin.

New books arrive here every day,

Such learning was never seen before.

Nicolò showed us one book

Which was entitled Ptolemy.

.............................

There are books here on every subject:

Drawings of plants, the lives of animals,

Faithful chronicles of several generations

Of bodies and souls of men

Still famous in their countries

And of their good and evil deeds.

As many books as are collected from afar

Are brought here continually

And added to the collection.

65) Cf. A. Quondam, Introduzione to Il libro del Cortegiano cit., p. XXXVII.

66) Don Michele De Silva, Bishop of Veseu, was a Portughese nobleman and man-of-letters whom Castiglione had met in Rome, at the court of Pope Leo X. For the significance of the dedicatory epistle to De Silva, cf. A. Carella, Urbino e le Marche cit., p. 499.

67) N. B. After the 1573 Ferrara performance, Aminta was staged in Pesaro during Lent 1574.

68) The emblem of the oak features on the della Rovere family coat of arms.

69) Better known as the Canzone al Metauro, "Oh del grand' Apennino" is published

in T.Tasso, Poesie, Milano-Napoli, Ricciardi,1952, pp. 813-815.

 

RECENT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE SUBJECT

The bibliography on Federico di Montefeltro and the Duchy of Urbino is very extensive. The following is therefore a list of just some of the more recent works, which, however, contain details of previous publications.

Part 1

Besides the seminal volumes on Federico di Montefeltro, Lo Stato/ Le arti/ La cultura, Roma, Bulzoni 1986, edited by Giorgio Cerboni Baiardi, Giorgio Chittolini, Pietro Floriani, which contain the proceedings of the Urbino Conference of 3 - 8 October 1982, the following works are relevant to a study of the Montefeltro family and Urbino under Duke Federico:

A.CHASTEL, I centri del Rinascimento, Milano 1965.

P.PALTRONI, Commentari della vita et gesti dell'illustrissimo Federico Duca d'Urbino, a cura di W.Tommasoli, Urbino, Accademia Raffaello, 1966.

F.COUSIN, La personalità storica dei duchi di Urbino, Urbino 1970.

FRANCESCHINI, I Montefeltro, Varese, Dall'Oglio 1970.

AA.VV., Lo Stato moderno,I:Dal Medioevo all'età moderna, Bologna, Il Mulino 1971.

W.TOMMASOLI, La vita di Federico da Montefeltro,1422-1482, Urbino, Argalia 1978 e 1995.

G.CHITTOLINI, La formazione dello Stato regionale e le istituzioni del contado, Torino, Einaudi, 1979;

P.PERUZZI, «Lavorare a corte": Ordini et officij - Domestici, familiari, cortigiani e funzionari, in "Studi Urbinati di Scienze giuridiche ed economiche",1980-81/81-82, pp. 317-396.

C. CLOUGH, The Duchy of Urbino in the Renaissance, London, Variorum 1981.

G. FRANCESCHINI ,Documenti e registri per servire alla storia dello stato di Urbino e dei conti di Montefeltro, Urbino, 1982.

F. SANGIORGI, Iconografia Federiciana, Urbino, Accademia Raffaello, 1982.

E. FASANO GUARINI, Gli stati dell'Italia Centro settentrionale tra Quattro e Cinquecento:continuità e trasformazioni, in "Società e storia", 1983, 21.

M. BONVINI MAZZANTI, Battista Sforza Montefeltro: Una "principessa" nel Rinascimento italiano, Urbino, Argalia 1993.

 

PART 2.

J.BURCKHARDT, La civiltà del Rinascimento in Italia, Firenze, Sansoni, 1955.

P.L.ROSE, Humanist Culture and Renaissance Mathematics: The Italian Libraries of the Quattrocento, in "Studies in The Renaissance", XX(1972), pp. 46-105.

 

E.PASQUINI, New perspectives on the «century without poetry», in AA.VV., Literature and criticism. Studies in honour of Natalino Sapegno, Roma, Bulzoni, 1977, pp. 81-136.

La Corte e il "Cortigiano" : 1:La scena del testo; 11:Un modello europeo, Roma, Bulzoni, 1980.

AA.VV, Arte e cultura nella provincia di Pesaro e Urbino, edited by F.Battistelli, Venezia, Marsilio 1986.

E.GAMBA-V.MONTEBELLI, Le Scienze a Urbino nel tardo Rinascimento, Urbino, QuattroVenti 1988.

R.RINALDI, Il progetto umanista,in Storia della civiltà letteraria italiana, Torino, Utet, 1990, pp. 1-160.

V.Rossi, IlQuattrocento, Padova, Piccio-Vallardi, 1992 (reprint of the 1933 edition edited by R.Bess).

 

M.SANTAGATA-S.CARRAI, La lirica di Corte nell'Italia del Quattrocento, Milano, FrancoAngeli 1993.

AA.VV, La cultura nelle Marche in età moderna, Milano, Motta, 1996.

 

 

 

N.GUIDOBALDI, La musica di Federico: Immagini e suoni alla corte di Urbino, Firenze, Olschki 1995.

La Cappella musicale del S.S.Sacramento nella Metropolitana di Urbino: Inventario (1499-1964), Urbino, Accademia Raffaello, 1995.

C.GINZBURG, Indagini su Piero, Torino, Einaudi 1981.

W.FONTANA, Scoperte e studi sul Genga pittore, Urbino, Accademia Raffaello, 1981.

R.VARESE, Giovanni Santi, Pesaro, Cassa di Risparmio, 1994.

AA.VV., Città e corte nell'Italia di Piero della Francesca. The proceedings of the international conference, Urbino 4 - 7 October 1992, edited by C. Cieri Via, Venezia,Marsilio,1996.

P.ROTONDI, Il palazzo ducale di Urbino, voll.2, Urbino, Istituto Statale d'arte, 1950.

A.PINELLI-O.ROSSI, Genga architetto: Aspetti della cultura urbinate nel primo Cinquecento ,Roma, 1971.

Restauri nelle Marche: Ricerche,studi e interventi per la conservazione e la valorizzazione dell'ambiente storico, Sopraintendenza ai monumenti delle Marche, 1973, pp. 350-432.

 

Documenti urbinati: Inventari del palazzo ducale (1582-1631) edited by F.Sangiorgi, Urbino, Accademia Raffello, 1976.

L.ARCANGELI, Parti ornamentali;spostamenti e adattamenti in Palazzo ducale di Urbino. Storia di un museo, Urbino, 1977.

Il Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, Novara, De Agostini, 1982.

F.MAZZINI, I mattoni e le pietre di Urbino, Urbino, Argalia, 1982.

Il Palazzo Ducale di Federico da Montefeltro. Vol I: Restauri e ricerche; vol.II: Rilievi, edited by M. L. Polichetti, Urbino, Quattro Venti 1985.

L. BENEVOLO-P. BONINSEGNA, Urbino, Bari, Laterza, 1986.

F. MARIANO, Architettura nelle Marche dall'età classica al Liberty, Firenze, Nardini, 1995.

G.FRANCESCHINI, Per la storia della Biblioteca di Federico da Montefeltro duca di Urbino, in Figure del Rinascimento italiano, Urbino, STEU, 1959.

A. D'ADDARIO, L'Archivio del Ducato di Urbino:Un problema di storia e di diritto archivistico, in Miscellanea in memoria di Giorgio Cencetti, Torino, Bottega D'Erasmo, 1973.

M. e L. MORANTI, Il trasferimento dei "codices urbinates" alla biblioteca vaticana. Cronistoria, documenti e inventario, Urbino, Accademia Raffaello, 1981.

 

PART 3.

S. BATTAGLIA, Mitografia del personaggio, Milano, Rizzoli, 1968.

A. DI BENEDETTO, Alcuni aspetti della Fortuna del "Cortegiano" nel Cinquecento, in Stile e linguaggio, Roma, Bonacci, 1974.

G. GORNI-N. FRYE, «The Courtier» in a Courtless Society, in "Spicilegio moderno", 1978, 10, pp. 3-16.

J. R. WOODHOUSE, B.Castiglione: A reassesment of the Courtier, Edinburgh, University Press 1978.

A. QUONDAM, Introduzione a Il libro del Cortegiano, Milano, Garzanti, 1981.

A. CARELLA, Urbino e le Marche, in Letteratura Italiana: Storia e geografia, Torino, Einaudi 1988.