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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: TUM-VAN |
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URBINO (anc. Urvinum Mataurense) , a city and archiepiscopal see of the Marches, Italy, in the province of Pesaro and Urbino, 19 M. direct S.W. of Pesaro and 50 M. by rail N. by W. of Fabriano, a junction on the line from Ancona to Rome. Pop. (1901) 6809 (town), 18,244 (commune). It is picturesquely situated on an abrupt hill 148o ft. above sea-level; its streets are narrow and crooked, and the town has a medieval aspect. It is dominated by the ducal palace erected by Luciano da Laurana, a Dalmatian architect, in 1460-82, for Federigo Montefeltro, and regarded by the contemporaries of the founder as the ideal of a princely residence. The sculptured doorways, chimneys and friezes of the interior are especially fine. Some are by Domenico Rosselli of Florence, others by Ambrogio d'Antonio da Milano. The rich and beautifully executed intarsia work may be due to Baccio Pontelli. The massive irregularity of the exterior is due to the unevenness of the site. The decoration of the exterior was never completed; but the arcaded courtyard is the finest of the Renaissance, except perhaps that of the Cancelleria at Rome (Burckhardt). The palace is now partly used for government purposes, and also contains the municipal archives, a collection of ancient inscriptions , formed by the epigraphist Raffaele Fabretti (many of them from Rome), a gallery of sculpture of various periods and a picture gallery. This last contains a small but interesting collection of pictures, including works by Paolo Uccello, Giovanni Santi, Justus of Ghent
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The ancient town of Urvinum Mataurense (taking its name from the river Mataurus or Metaurus) is mentioned a few times in classical literature, and many inscriptions relating to it exist. The course of its walls can still be traced. It was an important place in the Gothic wars, and is frequently mentioned by Procopius. At the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century it came into the possession of the family of Montefeltro. Of this by far the most important member was Federigo da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino from 1444 to 1482, one of the most successful condottieri chiefs of his time, and not only a man of great military and political ability, but also an enthusiastic patron of art and literature, on which he lavished immense sums of money. Federigo much strengthened his position, first by his own marriage with Battista, one of the powerful Sforza family, and secondly by marrying his daughter to Giovanni della Rovere, the favourite nephew of Pope Sixtus IV., who in return conferred upon Federigo the title of duke. Federigo's only son Guidubaldo, who succeeded his father, married in 1489 the gifted Elizabeth Gonzaga, of the ruling family in Mantua. In 1497 he was expelled from Urbino by Caesar Borgia, son of Alexander VI., but regained his dukedom in 1503, after Caesar's death. Guidubaldo was the last duke of the Montefeltro line; at his death in 1508 he bequeathed his coronet to Francesco Maria della Rovere, nephew of Julius II., and for about a century Urbino was ruled by its second dynasty of the Della Rovere family. In 1626 the last descendant of Francesco, called Francesco Maria II., when old and childless abdicated in favour of Pope Urban VIII., after which time Urbino, with its subject towns of Pesaro, Fano, Fossombrone, Gubbio, Castel Durante, Cagli and about 300 small villages, became part of the papal states until the suppression of the temporal power in 1870.During the reigns of Federigo and Guidubaldo, Urbino was one of the foremost centres of activity in art and literature in Italy. The palace erected by Federigo has already been mentioned. It was at his court that Piero della Francesca wrote his celebrated work on the science of perspective, Francesco di Giorgio Martini his Trattato d' architettura (published by Saluzzo, Turin, 1841), and Giovanni Santi his poetical account of the chief
letter of thanks and with the. small picture, now in the Louvre, of " St George and the Dragon ," painted by Raphael in 1504, as a present to the English king. This painting was among Charles I.'s collection which was sold by order of the Commonwealth in 1649.Throughout the whole of the 16th century the state of Urbino was one of the chief
See also E. Calzini, Urbino e i suoi monumenti (1897) ; G. Lipparini, Urbino (Bergamo, 1903). End of Article: URBINO (anc. Urvinum Mataurense) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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