Architecture and memory: the Renaissance studioli of Federico de Montefeltro

Fig. 2.10. Directly beneath “FEDERICVS” we find Plato and Aristotle placed side-by-side. A statistical breakdown of these figures yields the following: two are from the Old Testament, six are ancient Greeks, one is Egyptian, and four are Roman. Fifteen of the twenty-eight are Christian (including four of Federico’s contemporaries), and twelve of these fifteen are in the bottom tier. Drawn by author and Kazushige Yoshitake.

Fig. 6.20. Petrarch, among the illustrious men in the west wall of the Urbino studiolo.

Fig. 4.12. Perspectival “butterfly," drawn by Amelia Amelia after missing figure at Gubbio studiolo.

Fig. 6.78. Ceiling of quarters reserved for the King of England, in the Urbino ducal palace.

Fig. 6.63. Formella carved by Ambrogio da Barrocci after drawing by Francesco di Giorgio, originally inserted in palace façade, Urbino.

Fig. 6.62. The 72-sided Hebdomicontadissaedron drawn by Leonardo for Luca Pacioli (1445–1517), De Divina Proportione (A. Paganius Paganinus, 1509)

Fig. 6.12. Entrance to Capella del Perdono.

Fig. 2.46. Goddess Dialectic with Federico da Montefeltro, drawn by Amelia Amelia after portrait by Justus of Ghent and Pedro Berruguete.

Urbino Studiolo

Fig. 2.20. Worm’s eye view of the Urbino studiolo walls and ceiling, drawn by author and Amelia Amelia.

Fig. 6.64. In the Battle of Volterra (1472), Federico’s swift victory (achieved in twenty-two days, avoiding a lengthy siege of one of the most strongly fortified Tuscan cities) resulted from the duke’s skillful interpretation of the daunting landscape surrounding the city. Here the exercise of hunting was believed to benefit a condottiere directly; by the familiarity gained of one’s own territory he would learn not only how to better defend it but also that he could easily translate this experience to other territories. Machiavelli believed hunting so valuable as to admonish that “[a] prince who is lacking in this skill is wanting in the first essentials of a leader; for it is this which teaches how to find the enemy, take up quarters, lead armies, plan battles and lay siege to towns with advantage” (The Prince, 90). Federico’s love for this peacetime activity was represented by the hunting horn suspended in the Gubbio studiolo.

Fig. 4.28. Papagallo and birdcage, Gubbio studiolo.

Fig. 2.4. View from loggia outside studiolo.

Fig. 6.26. Sala del Conversazione.

Fig. 6.52. Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (ca. 1490), in which the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza holds an ermine. Kemp has noted that galée is Greek for ermine and therefore a pun on both the subject’s name and a declaration of her purity (Kemp, “Editorial notes for Circa 1492,” 271).

Fig. 2.18. Faith, south wall, Urbino studiolo.