Palazzo Ducale di Gubbio

Below Gubbio's cathedral rises the Renaissance residence Federico da Montefeltro built for his court, the only Renaissance monument in this medieval city. Its studiolo, inlaid with trompe-l'oeil woodwork and known worldwide through the New York original, has been returned here as a precise replica inside a state museum.

Why it matters

Gubbio is a Gothic city with one deliberate exception, and the Ministry of Culture introduces it exactly that way: a unique example of Renaissance architecture in a thoroughly medieval town. The Ducal Palace was the seat Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, established for his court in the city of his birth, and its construction is dated between 1474, when Federico became duke, and 1482, the year of his death. The palace preserves original furnishings, galleries tracing Eugubian painting from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, a contemporary collection, multimedia presentations and a virtual reconstruction of the studiolo with a sound dome evoking the instruments depicted there. The palace offers an important record of the court culture that made the Montefeltro family a byword for the Renaissance.

What to notice

The studiolo is a central feature of the palace. Federico's private study was lined with intarsia panels by the Florentine Giuliano da Maiano on designs by Francesco di Giorgio, and may have held paintings by Pedro Berreguete; the wood fittings were sold in 1874 to Prince Filippo Massimo Lancellotti, passed through the antiquities market and entered the Metropolitan Museum of New York in 1939. A replica of the fittings was installed in the palace in 2009, reproducing the perspective effects of the inlay, including lutes, cupboards, cages and books. The Corte Vecchia, the residence's oldest nucleus, contains medieval structures beneath the courtyard and remains of the Fonte dell'Arengo, the city's first public fountain from the late thirteenth century. The upper loggia displays paintings spanning five centuries of Eugubian art. A section of the upper floors presents works associated with the city's Biennale d'Arte Contemporanea, including pieces by Leoncillo, Pomodoro and Castellani.

Context and history

Gubbio passed to the Montefeltro in 1384, and the family chose its residence among the houses facing the cathedral in the upper town. Federico, born here, most likely in 1422, promoted the reconstruction and entrusted the design to the Sienese Francesco di Giorgio, who perhaps reworked an earlier idea by Luciano Laurana. The municipal portal calls the complex the Corte Nuova, built in Renaissance style over pre-existing medieval structures and completed under Federico's son Guidobaldo; its inner courtyard occupies the space of the commune's old square, with arcades below and architraved windows divided by lesenes above. After the duchy ended, the palace became a state museum. The 2009 return of the studiolo as a replica - the original sailing for New York in 1939 - is itself part of the palace's modern history, a rare case of an Italian museum exhibiting a reconstruction of a masterpiece of wood inlay at full scale.