URBINO, a city of the Marches (Urvinum Metaurense), Italy. Pop. (1931) : 7,429, town; 20,371, commune. It is pic turesquely situated on an abrupt hill 1,480 ft. above sea-level ; its streets are narrow and crooked, and the town has a mediaeval as pect. It is dominated by the ducal palace erected by Luciano di Laurana, a Dalmatian architect, in 1465-82, for Federigo Monte feltro (well represented in a picture by Justus of Ghent in the gallery), and regarded by the contemporaries of the founder as the ideal of a princely residence. The monumental staircase, sculptured doorways, chimneys and friezes of the interior are especially fine. Some are by Domenico Rosselli of Florence. The rich intarsia work of the Duke's study is by Baccio Pontelli.
In the cathedral there is a Pieta, in marble by Giovanni da Bologna. Opposite the palace is the church of S. Domenico, a Gothic building with a good early Renaissance portal and a relief in the lunette by Luca della Robbia (I449)• S. Francesco has a fine 14th century portico and campanile, and a handsome portal of a chapel in the interior by Constantino Trappola (15th century). S. Bernardino, outside the town, is a plain early Renais sance structure. On the walls of the chapel of San Giovanni Battista are frescoes by Lorenzo and Giacomo Salimbeni da San Severino (1416). The modest house where Raphael was born and spent his boyhood forms a museum of engravings and other records of Raphael's works. A monument was erected to him in the piazza in 1897. The theatre, decorated by Girolamo Genga, is one of the earliest in Italy; in it was performed the first Italian comedy, the Calandra of Cardinal Bibbiena, the friend of Leo X. and Raphael. The magnificent library formed by the Montefeltro and Della Rovere dukes was incorporated in the Vatican library in 1657. There is a free university founded in 1506.
The ancient town of Urvinum Metaurense takes its name from the river Metaurus. The walls can be traced. It was important
in the Gothic wars, and is mentioned by Procopius. About the end of the I2th century Urbino came under the rule of the family of Montefeltro, and especially of Federigo da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino from 1444 to 1482, who was an unusually enthusiastic patron of art and literature.
Federigo da Montefeltro much strengthened his position by his own marriage with Battista Sforza, and by marrying his daughter to Giovanni della Rovere, the favourite nephew of Pope Sixtus IV., who conferred upon Federigo the title of duke. Fed erigo's only son Guidobaldo, who succeeded his father, married in 1489 the gifted Elizabeth Gonzaga, of Mantua. Guidobaldo in 1508 bequeathed his coronet to Francesco Maria della Rovere, nephew of Julius II. In 1626 the last descendant of Francesco, Francesco Maria II., abdicated in favour of Pope Urban VIII., and Urbino, with its subject towns, which included Pesaro, Fano, Fossombrone, Gubbio, Castel Durante and Cagli together with outlying small villages, about 30o in number, became incorporated in the domain of the Papal States.
During the reigns of Federigo and Guidobaldo, Urbino was one of the foremost centres of activity in art and literature in Italy. Here Piero della Francesca wrote his celebrated work on the science of perspective, Francesco di Giorgio Martini his Trat tato d' architettura and Giovanni Santi his poetical account of the chief artists of his time.
Throughout the 16th century the state of Urbino manufactured majolica, especially at Gubbio and Castel Durante. Most of the finest pieces were made for the dukes. Famous citizens include the Ferrarese painter and friend of Raphael, Timoteo della Vite, and Bramante (q.v.). This city was also the birthplace of Pope Clement XI., of several cardinals of the Albani family, and of Raffaelle Fabretti, and other scholars.
See E. Calzini, Urbino e i suoi monumenti (1897) ; G. Lipparini, Urbino (Bergamo, 1903).