The Renaissance in Urbino was one of the most fundamental manifestations of the early Italian Renaissance.
During the lordship of Federico da Montefeltro, from 1444 to 1482, a fertile and vital artistic climate developed at the court, due to cultural exchanges with numerous centers on the peninsula and also abroad, especially the Flemish one. The cultural movement in Urbino was restricted within the court, around its highly refined prince, and although it elaborated highly advanced and avant-garde solutions, it did not generate a real local school, also due to the recourse mainly to foreign artists. Nevertheless, the Urbino style, by virtue of the very circulation of artists, experienced a wide diffusion, which made it one of the key variations of the Italian Renaissance. Among the basic characteristics of its humanistic culture were the unmistakable tone made of measure and rigor, which had protagonists such as Piero della Francesca, Luciano Laurana, Justus van Gent, Pedro Berruguete, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, and Fra Diamante.
According to French historian André Chastel, the Urbino Renaissance, called "mathematical," was one of the three fundamental components of the early Renaissance, along with the Florentine, "philological and philosophical," and the Paduan, "epigraphical and archaeological." Of the three it was the one "most closely related to the arts."
As the 16th century approached, the city, while remaining an island of highly refined culture, saw an impoverishment of its vitality in the figurative arts. Despite this, one of the great geniuses of the mature Renaissance, Raphael Sanzio, was born and took his very first steps in Urbino. From a cultural and literary point of view, on the other hand, Urbino remained for a long time one of the most stimulating environments in Italy, as witnessed by Baldassarre Castiglione, who set his Cortegiano at the court of Guidobaldo and Elisabetta da Montefeltro.
Historical and cultural context
Federico da Montefeltro, a successful condottiero, highly skilled diplomat and enthusiastic patron of the arts and literature, was responsible for the transformation of the Duchy of Urbino from the capital of an economically depressed territory to one of the most fertile and refined artistic centers of the time.
In 1444 Federico took power after the death of his brother Oddantonio in a conspiracy.
At the time he was one of the most sought-after captains of fortune, but he had also received a rare humanistic education in Mantua, under Vittorino da Feltre. From the master he absorbed an interest in mathematics, which shaped much of his cultural interests and artistic commissions, and reflexively his interest in architecture, which he believed was based on arithmetic and geometry. This gave rise to André Chastel's interpretation of Urbino as the court of mathematical Humanism, which had in Piero della Francesca its greatest interpreter and to whose influence can be referred the work of Bartolomeo della Gatta, the only one in Urbino who seemed to understand Piero.
Federico set his hand to the pressing political problems and began a reorganization of the state, which included a reorganization of the city according to a modern, comfortable, rational, and beautiful style. All his efforts, in the nearly forty years of his rule, were directed toward this goal, which, due to his extraordinary talents combined with considerable good fortune, came within a whisker of full realization. The point of reference in this ambitious cultural project was immediately Florence and its innovations related to humanism and the Renaissance. With the Tuscan city, as early as 1444, an alliance and an atmosphere of mutual protection was established, which facilitated the exchange of artists and personalities.
Federico called Leon Battista Alberti, Paolo Uccello, Luciano Laurana, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, who wrote the Treatise on Architecture for him, and the mathematician Luca Pacioli to his court. He was also very interested in Flemish painting, beginning in the 70s, so much so that the duke called artists such as Pedro Berruguete and Justus van Gent to work with him, who developed a happy dialogue between the Nordic "realist" figurative tradition and the Italian "synthetic" one. Giovanni Santi, father of Raphael, wrote a poetic account of the leading artists of the period.
At the palace they discussed the form the "ideal city" should take, its perspective, and the historical and moral legacy of "illustrious men."
The Duke's library was famous, organized by the humanist Vespasiano da Bisticci, and was full of codices with valuable illuminated pages.
Federico, through Baldassarre Castiglione's descriptions in Il Cortegiano, introduced the characters of the so-called "gentleman" in Europe, which remained fully in vogue until the 20th century.
Architecture, urban planning and sculpture The first Renaissance endeavor in Urbino was the portal of the church of San Domenico, created in 1449 in a manner similar to a Roman triumphal arch by Maso di Bartolomeo, called to the city through the intercession of Fra Carnevale, an Urbino painter sent perhaps by Federico himself to the workshop of Filippo Lippi, one of the three most famous Florentine painters of the time (along with Beato Angelico and Domenico Veneziano). Maso was a Florentine architect, sculptor, and goldsmith who had already trained in the workshop of Donatello and Michelozzo, with whom he had worked on the Cathedral of Prato.
Ducal Palace and the city
Federico da Montefeltro's most ambitious project was the construction of the Ducal Palace and, at the same time, the urban planning of Urbino, making it the city "of the prince."
Before Federico's interventions, Urbino was a town perched on two contiguous hills, with an elongated and irregular shape surrounded by a ring of walls. The main road axis cut through the city along the lower part between the two hills, leading on one side to the sea and on the other to the Apennine passes to Perugia and Lazio. The ducal residence was a simple palace on the southern hill, to which was added a nearby castellany, on the edge of the cliff towards the Porta Valbona.
The first phase: Maso di Bartolomeo
In about 1445 Federico first had the two ancient ducal buildings joined, calling in Florentine architects (headed by Maso di Bartolomeo) to build an intermediate palace. The result was the three-story Palazzetto della Jole, in a simple and typically Tuscan austere style. The interior was decorated with some sober antiquarian accents in the furnishings, as in the friezes and fireplaces, centered on the celebration of Hercules and the virtues of war.
The second phase: Luciano Laurana In the 60s the design of the palace was changed, to make it also an administrative headquarters and a place to host illustrious figures. From about 1466 the work in fact passed to a new architect, Dalmatian Luciano Laurana. The centerpiece of the new arrangement was the vast porticoed courtyard, which connected the previous buildings. The courtyard has harmonious, classical forms, with a portico with round arches, oculi, and Corinthian columns on the ground floor, while the main floor is punctuated by lesenes and architraved windows. Along the first two string courses run inscriptions in Roman capital letters, which are of classical epigraphic character, as are the capitals, precisely copied from Flavian specimens.
From this core the palace was later expanded toward the city and in the opposite direction. The facade toward the city had an "open book" (L-shaped) form on Piazzale Duca Federico, which was specially arranged by Francesco di Giorgio Martini and later closed on the north side by the side of the cathedral. The palace thus became the centerpiece of the urban fabric without being disruptive and subduing, with its presence, even the nearby religious authority.
The front overlooking Valbona was, on the other hand, completed with the so-called "facade of the Torricini," slightly rotated westward with respect to the orthogonal axes of the palace. It owes its name to the two towers flanking the tall and narrow facade, yet softened in the center by the ascending rhythm of three superimposed loggias, each repeating the pattern of the triumphal arch. The façade of the Torricini does not look toward the built-up area but outward, so greater stylistic freedom was possible, without having to worry about integration with earlier buildings; moreover, its imposing presence is clearly visible even from afar, as a symbol of ducal prestige.
The third phase: Francesco di Giorgio In 1472 Francesco di Giorgio Martini took over the direction of the work, completing the L-shaped facade, taking care of the private spaces, the loggias, the hanging garden and the second floor of the courtyard, as well as the connection with the underlying structures outside the walls. At the foot of the cliff was a large clearing, known as the "Mercatale" because it was the site of a market, where Francesco di Giorgio created the helicoidal ramp, which allowed wagons and horses to reach the palace and the "Data," that is, the large stables located at mid-height.
In the interior spaces overseen by Francesco di Giorgio, a change in style can be seen, marked by a more sumptuous and abstract decoration. In spite of these differences, the palace succeeded in the almost miraculous attempt to combine the various parts with balance in an asymmetrical complex, conditioned by the irregularities of the terrain and the pre-existing buildings, in which the rigor of the individual parts balances the lack of a unified design.
San Bernardino Outside the palace, it was Francesco di Giorgio Martini who investigated some of the problems derived from the considerations of the court. One example is the church of San Bernardino, erected between about 1482 and 1491 by testamentary disposition of the duke, who intended to be buried there. The architect used a Latin-cross plan with a single, barrel-vaulted nave that grafts onto the rectangular-based presbytery (slightly flatter on the transept side, otherwise resembling a square altogether), where three semicircular apses originally opened (the one behind the high altar was later torn down and replaced by a rectangular barrel-vaulted niche). The effect was that of the tripartite cell, of late antique inspiration, realized, however, with a spatial sharpness typical of Urbino culture. The exterior is almost bare, with brick facing enlivened only by the string-course cornices, windows and portal. The interior, on the other hand, is characterized by the almost bare masonry backgrounds, articulated by the solids and voids of the volumes and with a few details of refined preciousness, such as the gray moldings on the structural joints (of Brunelleschian inspiration), or the columns on high plinths that support the dome and make its weight discharge to the ground visible. The inscription in Roman capital letters runs around the entire perimeter and closely resembles that of the courtyard of honor in the Ducal Palace.
Military fortresses