What to see in Urbino, one-day itinerary including the main monuments and places of interest, including Palazzo Ducale, Casa di Raffaello and Oratorio di San Giovanni.
Tourist information
Town of the Marche whose historic center has been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco, Urbino rises in an elevated position, at an average altitude of 450 meters.
Its territory extends over two hills connected together by a valley, in the typical saddle configuration.
The inhabited center stands on an inhabited site since ancient times, a center of considerable importance in Roman times and a battleground in the wars between the Goths and the Byzantines, until the latter, in 538 AD, conquered it, then it fell into the hand first to the Lombards and then to the Franks.
Possession of the church, it became a free municipality, led by the representatives of the most powerful city families, flanked by the Bishop.
Around the twelfth century, ecclesiastical authority diminished its influence, so much so that the German Swabian emperors granted the city in fiefdom to the Montefeltro family, nobles of Lombard origin, who, excluding a period in which the Urbino people regained the control of the city, they ruled the County of Urbino, subsequently transformed into the Duchy of Urbino, until 1508.
In 1444 Federico da Montefeltro was proclaimed lord of the city, the most famous member of the family, leader, statesman and great patron of the Renaissance.
During his lordship, between 1444 and 1482, he summoned the best painters, architects, mathematicians and intellectuals of the time to court, making Urbino one of the most culturally and artistically most lively centers of the time.
What see
He was responsible for the construction of the Palazzo Ducale, one of the most beautiful and refined palaces of the Renaissance period.
Although the works were initially entrusted to the Florentine Maso di Bartolomeo, who included the ancient palace called della Jole in the new construction, the main parts of this work are attributable to the famous Dalmatian architect Luciano Laurana.
Around 1474 the architect Laurana was replaced by the Sienese artist Francesco di Giorgio Martini, also an architect and engineer, who made the building a building of extraordinary beauty, a real "city in the form of a palace", able to accommodate hundreds of people.
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With the transfer of power to the Della Rovere dynasty, the building underwent new modifications and extensions.
In 1631 the Duchy of Urbino was donated to the Holy See and a period of decay began for the palace lasting several centuries, until 1912 when the National Gallery of the Marche was set up inside, which allowed the recovery of numerous works of art .
In the saddleback there is the main square, while at its feet is the old Market Square, called the Mercatale.
On the hill located in the south, slightly lower than the one in the north, are the Palazzo Ducale, the headquarters of the University of Urbino, with the new headquarters of the Observatory and the main monuments.
After the Palazzo Ducale, the most interesting museum in the city is the House of Raffaello Sanzio, where the famous painter was born and spent the first years of his life.
To visit the Oratory of San Giovanni, where there is a cycle of frescoes of the early fifteenth century, the work of the Salimbeni brothers of Sanseverino, witnesses of prestige of the international Gothic, and the Oratory of San Giuseppe, where a beautiful crib by the sculptor is kept urbinate Federico Brandani.
Another interesting buildings in the historic center is the Church of San Francesco.
