Historic Centre of Urbino
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How it came to be
Urbino is a hill town in the Marche whose story begins with Roman fortifications of the 3rd to 2nd century BC. At the end of the 12th century it came under the rule of the Montefeltro family. Federico da Montefeltro, a soldier who ruled from 1444 to 1482, drew to his court artists such as Luciano Laurana, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello.
His new Ducal Palace, the work of the Dalmatian architect Laurana and of Francesco di Giorgio, was fitted into the town by absorbing older medieval buildings rather than clearing them. Raphael was born in Urbino in 1483, and in 1506 Duke Guidobaldo founded the college that became the university. Baldassare Castiglione set his Book of the Courtier as a series of conversations held in the palace in 1507.
In 1508 the city passed to the Della Rovere family, whose move of the court to Pesaro in 1523 began a slow decline. From 1631 to 1860 Urbino belonged to the Papal States, and its economic and cultural stagnation left the Renaissance town largely unchanged. In the second half of the 20th century the architect Giancarlo De Carlo drew up plans to restore the historic centre. Urbino was inscribed in 1998.
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