Urbino

“ From Romagna, the Marches of Ancona, and the Umbrian cities, more captains of adventure than men of letters or artists swelled the muster-roll of Italian worthies. We must not, however, forget the unique place which Urbino, with its refined society, pure Court, and concourse of accomplished men and women, occupies in the history of Italian civilization. ”

“ On the slopes of the Apennines, towards the Adriatic Sea, almost in the centre of Italy, there lies (as every one knows) the little city of Urbino. Although surrounded by mountains, and rougher ones than perhaps some others that we see in many places, it has yet enjoyed such favor of heaven that the country round about is very fertile and rich in crops; so that besides the salubrity of the air, there is great abundance of everything needful for human life. ”

“ From these far-off peaks there seemed to breathe a gentle breeze, that tempered the air with bracing freshness, and, from the rustling groves of the adjacent hills, began to awaken sweet notes of wandering birds." The same golden sun continues to dawn upon Urbino, but, ere many months had passed, the bright galaxy of satellites that circled round Duke Guidobaldo was scattered, for their guiding star had gone to another sphere. ”

“ It was a quarter of the town admirably suited to a man of the magician's studious habits. The greater streets of Urbino might tremble under the tramp of armed multitudes in those days when the Lord Cesare Borgia, Duke of Valentinois and Romagna, was master of the city, and the peaceful, scholarly Duke Guidobaldo a fugitive outcast. Down that narrow, ill-paved gap of sordid dwellings came no disturbers of the peace. So that Corvinus Trismegistus was left to pursue his studies unmolested, to crush his powders, and distil his marvellous elixirs. ”

“ A romantic interest has always attached to the [80] library at Urbino. The best scholars in Europe used to assemble at the palace, where Duke Federigo made such a gathering of books 'as had not been seen for a thousand years,' in the hall where Emilia and the pale Duke Guidubaldo led the pleasant debates described in the 'Cortegiano.' Federigo, the most successful general in the Italian wars, had built a palace of delight in his rude Urbino, in which he hoped to set a copy of every book in the world. ”

“ Were we to estimate the celebrities of Urbino by the encomiums of their partial countrymen, and measure their claims upon mundane immortality by the standard set up by Baldi Lazzari, Grossi, Cimarelli, and Olivieri, it would become our indispensable duty to add at least a volume to the present work. But these authors were deeply imbued with that peculiarly Italian patriotism which, narrowing its sympathies within the limits of a township or a petty state, enshrined provincial mediocrity in a temple of fame modelled upon a scale of national splendour. ”

“ But we may fairly compare the palace-pastimes of Urbino with those held in acceptance by the princes and peerage of northern states, where deep potations dulled the senses, or brutalised the temper; where intellect rarely sought a more refined gratification than the monotonous recital of legendary adulation; and where wit was monopolised by dwarfs and professional jesters. In order better to preserve the form and fashion of this pattern for princes, we shall transfer to our pages, from Castiglione's groupings, some outlines of its chief ornaments, beginning with himself. [35]
Raffaele pinx. ”

“ Among the distinguished names which have been associated with Urbino are those of the Ferrarese painter and friend of Raphael, Timoteo della Vite, who spent most of his life there, and Bramante, the greatest architect of his age. The Milanese sculptor, Ambrogio, who worked so much for Federigo, married a lady of Urbino, and was the progenitor of the Baroccio family, among whom were many able mathematicians and painters. Federigo Baroccio, Ambrogio's grandson, was a very popular painter, some of whose works still exist in the cathedral and elsewhere in Urbino. ”

“ But the ideal center of intellectual culture was the court of Urbino, the central figure of which was the learned and accomplished Elizabetta Gonzaga. This picturesque city of the eastern slope of the Apennines was then to Italy what Athens had been to Greece in the days of Pericles; and Elizabetta was to its court what Aspasia was in her own matchless salon—the magnet which attracted all the artists and men of letters of the age. ”

“ Next day he proceeded to Urbino, where, Castiglione tells us, "he was met by swarms of children bearing olive-boughs, and hailing his auspicious arrival; by aged sires tottering under their years, and weeping for joy; by men and women; by mothers with their babes; by crowds of every age and sex; nay, the very stones seemed to exult and leap." Women of all ranks flocked in from the adjacent townships, with tambourines played before them, to see their sovereign, and touch his hand ”

“ How often has this intermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, by Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its contadini are robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. No wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, and Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yet they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits of life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. ”

“ He will be a glory to our beloved Urbino."
"It is indeed most excellent work, my lord duke," said the master- potter, who was trembling with surprise and dared not show all the astonishment and emotion that he felt at the discovery of so exquisite a creation in his bottega. "It must be," he added, for he was a very honest man, "the work of one of the lads of Pesaro or Castel Durante. I have no such craftsman in my workshop. It is beautiful exceedingly!" ”

“ He was born in Urbino in 1483; and if climate, as seems not improbable, have any influence on the genius of an artist, I know not a happier spot that could have been chosen for his birth, than that part of Italy which gave to architecture a Bramante, supplied the art of painting with a successor to Raffaello in Baroccio, and bestowed on sculpture the plastic hand of a Brandani, without referring to many less celebrated, but still deserving artists, who are the boast of Urbino and her state. ”

“ Neither have I discovered that influence upon art at Urbino which he and Passavant impute to this Fleming, whose only other known work in Umbria was a now lost church standard.
Art has in many instances been able largely to compensate the liberality of its early patrons. Besides preserving to after times the person of those
"Whose barks have left no traces on the tide,"
it has frequently transmitted to us the form and comeliness of men whose characters, actions, or talents have left an impress on their age. ”

“ Gentile de' Becci was probably a native of Urbino, but the interest attaching to his name is owing rather to the distinction attained by his pupils than to his own. He was selected by Pietro de' Medici to train up his son Lorenzo the Magnificent; and to have educated such a mind is an unexceptionable title to fame. ”

“ But whilst Medici and Petrucci were thus ingeniously devising delays, news reached them of the Duke of Urbino's descent upon Tuscany, causing them respectively to tremble for their supremacy in Florence and Siena, and to question the policy of procrastinating at the Quirinal, whilst interests so momentous were elsewhere in peril. ”

“ At Urbino, at Venice, at Rome, and at Padua, his study was the meeting-place of learned men, who found the graces of the highest-265- aristocracy combined in him with genial enthusiasm for the common interests of letters. Thus the man did even more than the author to promote the revolution he had at heart. This is brought home to us with force when we consider the place assigned to him in Castiglione's Cortegiano—a masterpiece of composition transcending, in my opinion, all the efforts made by Bembo to conquer the difficulties of style. ”

“ From the picture by Timoteo Viti in the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino
Few of this painter's early works are identified, and no frescoes from his designs appear to survive; but his altar-picture painted for the Bonaventura chapel in the church of S. Bernardino at Urbino, and now by the hazards of war in the Brera at Milan, offers one of the most remarkable compositions of the age. The Annunciation, that graceful theme of Christian art, had hitherto been treated upon one uniform type, and though ever attractive was generally trite. ”

“ And some there were, attracted by the charm of this society, who tarried at Urbino many days after the departure of the pope and his court; during which time not only were the ordinary pastimes and diversions continued in the usual manner, but every man strove to contribute something new, and especially in the games, to which almost every evening was devoted. ”

“ In the Cortegiano of Castiglione we are furnished with an elaborate, and in the main faithful, delineation of the men, the manners, and the accomplishments which rendered the court of Urbino a model for his age, and also with an interesting picture of the immediate circle which Guidobaldo and his estimable Duchess formed around them. ”

“ Urbino sits high above the surrounding valley, twelve or fifteen hundred feet above sea level. A coach of doubtful antiquity formerly made the same journey as that covered by the railway and deposited its mixed freight of travellers and inhabitants in one of the most splendid of the Renaissance cities of Italy. Now, the automobile brings many more tourists than ever before came by coach, or railway even, and accordingly Urbino will undoubtedly become better known. ”

“ During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries literature was cultivated and art was encouraged by a large proportion of the sovereigns and feudatories of Italy, when the bravest condottieri were often their most liberal patrons. Such were the impetuous Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the gallant Francesco Sforza, the treacherous Ludovico il Moro; whilst the Gonzaga of Mantua, and the d'Este of Ferrara, but most especially the ducal houses of Urbino, extended, during successive generations, an enlightened and almost regal protection to genius of every shade. ”

“ It is pleasant to find the arts from time to time becoming handmaids of history as well as of religion; and the friendly feeling for England then cherished at Urbino is curiously illustrated by a bequest of Bishop Arrivabene, who, in 1504, left 400 golden scudi to be expended in decorating a chapel, dedicated to St. Martin and St. Thomas of Canterbury: the Duchess Elisabetta was one of the trustees, and the fresco ordered by them from Girolamo Genga included a representation of the English saint, and a portrait of Duke Guidobaldo. ”

“ The worthy Cardinal of Cosenza, we understand, is unwilling to pass through the territory of the illustrious Duke of Urbino.
From Foligno the journey was continued by way of Nocera and Gualdo to Gubbio, one of the most important cities in the duchy of Urbino. About two miles from that place the Duchess Elisabetta met Lucretia and accompanied her to the city palace. ”

“ There is no foothold at the summit for more than a dozen men at a time, and as for using guns against it, it were easier to mount a park of artillery upon a fiddle-string.'
'Yet until San Leo is ours we are not fully masters of Urbino,' said the Duke. 'We cannot leave the place in the hands of Fioravanti.'
'We shall have to starve him out, then,' said Della Volpe.
'And that would take a year at least,' put in Corella, who had been gathering information. 'They have great store of wheat and other victuals and they are watered by a well in the inner bailie of the fortress. ”

“ The Duchess of Urbino has announced that she expects to come with a mounted escort of fifty persons. So far as the men are concerned, his Holiness said that there would not be many, as there were no Roman noblemen except the Orsini, and they generally were away from the city. Still, he hoped to be able to find sufficient, provided the Duke of Romagna did not take the field, there being a large number of nobles among his followers. ”

“ Antonio Viviani, called il Sordo of Urbino, also made some very accurate copies of his master, which are still preserved by his noble posterity. He too was a great favourite of Federigo, and was in his native city called his nephew; although Baglione, who wrote his life, is silent on this head. He left some pictures in Urbino, in the best style of Barocci; particularly the S. Donato, in a suburban church of the saint of that name. ”

“ In the confederate army there were too many conflicting interests, too many rival leaders; but it was the peculiar misfortune of the Duke of Urbino to serve a power whose jealousy exceeded all rational bounds. It was not without considerable persuasion that he obtained of the Signory sanction to cross the Adda, and unite their troops, amounting to twelve hundred horse and six thousand foot, with the forces of the League. ”

“ His dissertation on the characters of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino is written in Latin, and exhibits all those blemishes of style to which we have just referred, and which so strangely jar upon the fulsome flattery and elaborate verbiage which he labours to reduce into Ciceronian terseness. Though entitled a "Book," the whole occupies but a hundred pages in the octavo edition of his works (1567) , whereof scarcely one third is original matter. ”