Renaissance in Urbino

During the lordship of Federico da Montefeltro, from 1444 to 1482,[1] 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.

Among the basic characteristics of its humanistic culture were the unmistakable tone made of measure and rigor,[1] which had protagonists such as Piero della Francesca, Luciano Laurana, Justus van Gent, Pedro Berruguete, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, and Fra Diamante.

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.

[3] 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.

[5] 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.

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.

[10] 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.

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.

Although many of those buildings have been destroyed or heavily modified, San Leo, Mondavio and Sassocorvaro remain virtually intact, bearing witness to how offensive and defensive functions are specifically integrated with the orography of the sites, through often ingenious empirical intuitions that set aside the complex geometric or zoomorphic plans depicted in the Treatise.

Few and subtly refined are the formal decorations, such as the string-course cornices that elastically wrap around the perimeters or the infilled corbels that support the walkways and enliven the smooth curtain walls.

At least one sojourn in Urbino between 1469 and 1472 is considered plausible, where he brought his style already delineated in its fundamental traits from his earliest artistic efforts and summarized in the perspective organization of the paintings, the geometric simplification that invests the compositions and even individual figures, the balance between ceremonial stillness and investigation of human truth, and the use of a very clear light that lightens the shadows and permeates the colors.

The panel is divided into two sections proportioned by the golden ratio: on the right, in the open, are three figures in the foreground, while on the left, under a loggia, the scene of the actual flagellation of Christ unfolds more in the distance.

However, the research into the harmony between spatial rigor and luminous truth had its best outcome in the Brera Altarpiece (1472), formerly in San Bernardino, where Federico da Montefeltro is portrayed kneeling as the patron.

The space is deep and light is its abstract and motionless protagonist, defining forms and materials in the most diverse effects: from the dark opacity of the saints' humble cloths to the reflections of Federico's shiny armor.

[19] Originally the upper part was decorated by a frieze with twenty-eight portraits of illustrious men of the past and present, arranged on two registers, the work of Justus van Gent and Pedro Berruguete, and today divided between the Louvre Museum and the National Gallery of the Marches (which keeps them in another room).

[19] The portraits, which included both civic and ecclesiastical, Christian and pagan figures, were intensified by a slightly lowered point of view and the unified background, which through perspective created the effect of a royal gallery.

The inlays of Baccio Pontelli, a specialist in complex perspective constructions of geometric objects, which created a continuous exchange between reality and fiction, dilating the space of the otherwise tiny room, stand out.

The most obvious examples concern the developments of the relationship between real and painted architecture, inaugurated by Piero della Francesca and the makers of the inlays of the Study, which was picked up by Melozzo da Forlì, who exported it to Rome, and by the nascent Perugia school, especially in the beginnings of Pietro Vannucci.

[20] However, the climate born in the Montefeltro seignory remained a pillar in the local figurative culture, influencing the formation of two of the main interpreters of the full Renaissance, who originated precisely in Urbino: Raphael and Bramante.