Federico da Montefeltro e Francesco di Giorgio Martino. Urbino crocevia delle arti (Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino, 23 June–9 October 2022). Catalogue by Alessandro Angelini, Gabriele Fattorini and Giovanni Russo. Venice: Marsilio Editore, 2022. 320 pp. ISBN 979‐1254630396.

Abstract

The exhibition Federico da Montefeltro e Francesco di Giorgio. Urbino crocevia delle arti reflected on the importance of Urbino on the sixth centenary of the birth of Federico da Montefeltro (1422– 2022). The show included over 60 loans from paintings to sculptures, drawings, illuminated manuscripts and medals, created by more than 20 artists from different parts of Italy, as well as Spain and Croatia. Displayed in the temporary exhibition space on the ground floor of the ducal palace, the curators intended that the building itself should form an integral part of the exhibition. The catalogue and first panel explained that the show took as its historical cue Federico’s victory over his neighbour and rival, Sigismondo Malatesta, and the start of the second phase of the construction of the ducal palace (1460). The display thus focused on the decades between 1460 and 1480, the most ‘mature’ period of Federico’s patronage and the moment when Urbino became, as the title suggests, a ‘crossroads’ of the arts. The first room opened with a section entitled Ritorno di Federico da Montefeltro a Urbino. Piero e gli antefatti prospettici (1462– 1476), which addressed the celebration of Federico and his family through images dating to the second phase of the palace’s construction. In addition to several portraits of the duke, the exhibition featured the relief of Federico’s son Guidobaldo portrayed by Domenico Rosselli and that of his wife, Battista Sforza, executed by the Croatian sculptor Francesco Laurana. The latter was commissioned by the duke himself to commemorate the untimely death of his wife; it displays the fine talents of the Dalmatian sculptor, particularly evident in how the veil gathers over her hair and in the delicately carved lace tied under her chin. The room’s principal focus, however, was undoubtedly Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation (Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche), which faced the visitor immediately upon entering. As it predated all works in the room by about 10 years, the painting is described in the catalogue as the ideal ‘beginning of the exhibition’, while the explanatory panel considered it as a ‘manifesto of the culture of Urbino’ (‘manifesto della cultura urbinate’) as it displays the mathematical interest in the use of perspective that characterised the artistic environment of the court in the second half of the 15th century. A primary space on the wall was granted to the panel, distancing it from the rest