The story of this place
Under Federico da Montefeltro, the one-eyed mercenary-duke immortalised in Piero della Francesca's profile portrait, tiny Urbino became one of Europe's most brilliant courts. His Ducal Palace, largely built after 1454, was praised as 'a city in the form of a palace'—an ideal of harmony, learning, and beauty. Its jewel is the Studiolo, a tiny study lined with astonishing trompe-l'œil marquetry that mimics cupboards, books, and instruments in inlaid wood. The court hosted humanists and artists; Baldassare Castiglione set his 'Book of the Courtier,' the bible of Renaissance manners, in these very rooms. The painter Raphael was born in Urbino in 1483. Today the palace houses the National Gallery of the Marche.