Federico da Montefeltro
|
|
Federico_da_Montefeltro.jpg
Federico da Montefeltro (1422–1482) was one of the most successful condottieri of the Italian Renaissance, a fighter for hire who created one of the great libraries, perhaps the largest of Italy after the Vatican, with his own team of scribes in his scriptorium, and assembled around him at Urbino a great humanistic court in one of the great architectural gems of the early Renaissance, the Ducal Palace of Urbino, designed by the architect and theorist Francesco di Giorgio Martini.
Born out of wedlock, the heir of the minor lordship of Montefeltro, Federico was a warrior for hire, whose successful second career as patron of the arts began in earnest when he took the city of Urbino in 1444, after the assassination of his half-brother. His portrait by Piero della Francesca in the Uffizi shows him in profile because a sword-cut early in life took his right eye and left a gash across the bridge of his nose.
In the 1450s he fought for the king of Naples and his ally Pope Pius II. He married Battista Sforza, from another successful condottiere family, the masters of Milan. In the pay of the Sforza— for Federico never fought for free— he transferred Pesaro to their control, and received Fossombrone as his share, making a great enemy in the Marches, Sigismondo Malatesta, lord of Rimini. In 1459 in Romagna he fought for Pius against Malatesta, soundly defeating him at the Cesano river near Senigallia (1462). The Pope made him vicar of the conquered territories, but when Pius attempted to take personal control of the former Malatesta seat at Rimini, Federico switched sides and fought at the head of an alliance of cities ranged against papal power.
Urbino was raised to a duchy in 1474 by Pope Sixtus IV, who married his favorite nephew Giovanni Della Rovere to Federico's daughter Giovanna. Now Federico fought against his former patrons the Florentines, at the head of Sixtus' army, following the failure of the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478, in which Federico was deeply involved.
In 1489 he wed his son Guidobaldo to Elizabetta Gonzaga, the brilliant and educated daughter of the lord of Mantua. With Guidobaldo's death in 1508, the duchy of Urbino passed through Giovanna to the Papal family of Della Rovere established by Sixtus IV.
External links
- Capsule biography (http://www.le-marche.com/Marche/html/montefel.htm), illustrated with Piero della Francesca's portrait of 1465/6de:Federico da Montefeltro