Historic Center of Urbino
(1998)
Italy
The small hill town of Urbino, in the Marche, experienced a great cultural flowering in the 15th century, attracting artists and scholars from all over Italy and beyond, and influencing cultural developments elsewhere in Europe. Owing to its economic and cultural stagnation from the 16th century onwards, it has preserved its Renaissance appearance to a remarkable extent.
Urbino (ancient Urbinum Hortense) is a town in central Italy, in Marche Region. Urbino is a tourist and agricultural center, famous for the majolica ware made during the Renaissance.
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Among the chief points of interest are a 15th-century ducal palace (now a well-known museum of Italian painting) and a university founded in 1506. Urbino came under Roman rule in the 3rd century bc. From 1474 to 1626 it was the capital of the duchy of Urbino and a renowned art center. Urbino was part of the Papal States from 1626 to 1860, when it was incorporated into the kingdom of Italy.
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Federico da Montefeltro was born in 1422 to a small-time noble family that ruled over an insignificant square of the chess-board that was then central Italy. Yet within sixty years he had become "the light of Italy" and the paradigm of Renaissance man, as skilled in letters as in arms. As in all portraits of the Duke, including Piero della Francesca's famous painting in the Uffizi, we only see his left profile; a swordblow earlier in his life had cost him his right eye and the bridge of his nose.
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One of Italy's greatest painters ever, Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) was a native of Urbino. Raphael was born in Urbino on March 28 or April 6, 1483.
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His father, the artist Giovanni di Santi, worked mainly for
Francesco Gonzaga in Mantua, and Raphael spent his youth in a courtly
environment. In 1500Raphael was apprenticed to Perugino, a highly
respected artist who was one of the first in Italy to paint extensively in
oil. He employed pure strong colours for his figures, which were imbued
with a particularly sweet air of piety, often setting them in landscapes
infused with pale, shimmering light.
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Sources and links:
Other World Heritage Sites in Italy (on this site). Inactive links are not described on stamps. Please refer to the UNESCO-listing, section Italy for further information about such sites.
Revised 01 aug 2006 |
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