Il Palazzo Ducale di Urbino. Lo studiolo / The Ducal Palace of Urbino. The studiolo

This volume is a richly illustrated guide to Federico da Montefeltro’s studiolo in the Ducal Palace in Urbino.

The studiolo is situated in the heart of the apartments of Federico da Montefeltro. lt belongs to a suite of the palace’s most private rooms, along with the Cappella del Perdono and Tempietto delle Muse on the ground floor, and the bathroom in the basement. These are the rooms in which the politicaI propaganda of the public figure of the lord of Urbino is at its most incessant. The studiolo is part of a sequence of rooms replicating similar past arrangements and represents its hub: there is a large room (Sala degli Angeli), an antechamber (Sala delle Udienze), a bedchamber, and a guardaroba. The latter represented an important node on the spiral staircase in the north tower, which led from the “sacred” space on the floor below down to the bathroom and to potential escape routes via the service rooms. This small study, which could hold a select number of distinguished guests, has two entrances: a public one from the antechamber and a private one from the guardaroba. The studiolo offered egress to the second storey of the monumental loggia between the mighty towers impressing travellers – then as now – reaching the city from the west. From this vantage point, Federico could symbolically assert his possession of his domains, from his ancestral lands in Montefeltro as far as Gubbio, and reassure himself that the borders had not been breached.

Italian English edition, translation by Oona Smyth for Scriptum, Rome.