The Renaissance Court of Urbino Presented by MALS Alumna, Deborah Warin

Deborah Warin presented a lecture on March 23, 2012 to Graduate Liberal Studies students, alumni, and friends on The Renaissance Court of Urbino, a topic in which she is currently writing a book about.  Her lecture was a fine study in the humanities that are the hallmark of the Liberal Studies program at Georgetown University.

The Court of Urbino was at the apogee of early Renaissance art and culture - particularly in that epoch's revival and celebration of the liberal arts.  Though attention is most often given to the Court of the Medicis and to Florence, it is amusing that the Florentines sent emissaries to study the architecture and the art in Urbino. The Duke and Duchess of Urbino vastly outspent the Medici in their patronage of art and culture. The palace in Urbino surpassed anything one would have seen in Florence. Nothing like it had ever been seen before terms in scale, innovation, or beauty. It was likely the inspiration for the sudden surge of papal patronage and the renovation of the Vatican.

One of the famous double portraits from the Renaissance is that of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, the Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesco. Their marriage was a study of deep love and commitment and collaboration in all the great work of the Renaissance - particularly in arts and letters and their vision of establishing an ideal court and an "ideal city" based on neo-Platonic ideals. The duke spent more than the Medicis in promoting Renaissance culture did.  His portrait is always from the left profile because he lost his right eye in a tournament.  His wife was a child prodigy, well educated in languages and rhetoric. By age 15, she was regent of Urbino and the Montefeltro territories both during her husband’s absence as well as during sharing rule while he was at court. She negotiated treaties, founded a bank for the poor, and was granted extraordinary ecclesiastical privileges by her friend and confidant Pope Pius II.

Battista actually was the third generation in her family of women poets, scholars who were famous for their political courage and acuity as well as their scholarly achievements. It was the norm for aristocratic daughters to receive a rigorous liberal arts education alongside their brothers - in part because of the humanist values of the period and in part for practical reasons. Women needed to be ready to rule as regent, in cases of absence or death or very often alongside their husband simply because they were so good at it.  In fact, it was rather déclassé to have an under educated wife or worse, daughter. This would not be the case in Northern Europe for more than a century later and even then, a woman's education was mostly "moral" and religious education.

Battista was beloved in Urbino and beyond for her charity, her intellect, her devotion to her subjects and family, and her deep spirituality.  One might compare her to Princess Diana in terms of the hold she had on people, and one might see her as a feminist well ahead of her times.  When she died at 26 in 1472, she was in the midst of her lifelong ambition to personally translate the works of Cicero.

Artists like Raphael and architects like Bramante (architect appointed by Julius II to renovate the Vatican complex) had their start in Urbino. Paintings now associated with Florence originated in the Court of Urbino.

Deborah Warin co-directs the Renaissance Tour Company and leads tours through the cities in Italy associated with this era.  The Liberal Studies program offers some of these trips as study tours.