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Historic hilltown of Urbino from the strada panoramica. Marches, Italy.
Celebrated URBINO. Clustered in attractive composition across the saddle of two hills, it stands above honeyed ramparts looking sharp, and expressing its humanity and history. Here’s an Early Renaissance hilltop city with medieval skirts, mellowed yet intact. This place has the distinct identity of a built personality, with its blended brickwork delineated from agricultural surroundings by its encircling walls.
Urbino is exceptional for the way its growth layering has such a feeling of homogeneous continuity, additive instead of disruptive. Supported terraces strengthen the natural contours. Old palaces still stand and the buildings gain new refinements as benign veneers of time.
Urbino was ceded in the 12thC to the Montefeltro family who ruled and guided it until the 16thC. During the 15thC time of Federico da Montefeltro, Count and then Duke, it became a great Renaissance art centre and produced more works for its size than any city in Italy. As patron, Federico commissioned many artists from the whole country and beyond, such as Luca Signorelli, Piero della Francesca, and Justus of Ghent. Also, under patronage of his Court, Donato Bramante and Raphael Santi grew up and started training here. Federico supported architecture above all, and gained admiration of his people through the “magnificence” of his residence. Federico’s son Guidobaldo carried on his father’s work but with much-reduced funding. Around 1630 the Papal State ended Urbino’s autonomy, re-establishing control by the Church, and Urbino became frozen in a long decline.
Sensitive development has recently revived this town’s life for the future. It’s become an outstanding example of urban design as humane overlayering resulting from in-depth reading of appropriate qualities and setting. Yet limited economy means we may still find corners of dusty melancholy.......... cont'd>
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Piero della Francesca, 1451.
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Duomo basilica/cathedral, Ducal Palace, and Rampa Elicoidale.
.........At this south-western arrival, a generous platform built into the landscape welcomes us. (Peeping bottom right corner.) This was originally constructed under Duke Montefeltro to make a public level for an all-hills city. Here platforms have special preciousness. Just outside the city gate, this level provides an expansive marketplace, hence its name Piazzale Mercatale. It makes a forecourt to the town and a vista-opening apron to the Duke’s Palace above accessed by the round-ended Rampa building.........
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...........Here in the western corner of the old city, and built into sloped brickwork below the Ducal Palace, is a bastion-like rounded structure projecting out (extreme right.). It rises in several storeys. The main part of it is the 15thC Rampa Elicoidale designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini. His proficiency in geometry was outstanding and his work influenced the vocabulary of followers, especially Bramante. Recent studies give him more credit for the best architecture of Urbino’s golden era than was previously attributed.
Recently architect Giancarlo De Carlo discovered and retrieved the Rampa from the obscurity in which it had been left for more than a century, restoring the old access, and also the Sanzio theatre on top with revised entry. This sensitive recovery provided for today a helical ramp-stair and lift tower for pedestrians. It brings us from the lower carpark, up within the walls alongside the Ducal Palace, to follow along the vaulted colonnade of Corso Garibaldi (central horizontal), leading to Piazza Repubblica (off left). An ingenious and most successful townscape linkage!..........
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Tags: PS peteshep Copyright photo Urbino Marches Italy UNESCO World Heritage Site Architecture Historic city Hilltop Centro storico Corso Garibaldi Ducal Palace Duomo/basilica/cathedral Montefeltro Secret patio Luciana Laurana Geotagged Quattrocento Francesco di Georgio Giancarlo De Carlo Public Placemaking UNESCO
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............Looking up to the famous Ducal Palace above, we see a brick composition giving highlight to this town, yet integrated with it. It was during the period of Federico da Montefeltro that the court of Urbino became a high-point in the history of cultured civilization. (Yes, Federico was the guy always illustrated in side profile minimising joust-damaged eye and nose, and wearing a red hat.)
(Rampa Elicoidale on the left.)
In the early 15thC young Federico became a successful condottiere leader. This gained him wealth and reputation. Later his wealth was further increased when he was paid large sums not to fight. He became an enthusiastic Humanist, a wise and benevolent leader of his people, and patron of architecture and painting; his transformation of Urbino through the middle Quattrocento reflected aspirations of a person of ideas. Federico da Montefeltro’s court was also the gathering place for such notable people as Alberti, Botticelli, and Luciano Laurana...........
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Tags: PS peteshep Copyright photo Urbino Marches Italy UNESCO World Heritage Site Architecture Historic city Hilltop Teatro Sanzio Rampa elicoidale Ducal Palace Mercatale Montefeltro Bastion ramp Geotagged Quattrocento Giancarlo De Carlo UNESCO
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..........At the top of the helical ramp and revised entry to the Teatro Sanzio........
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Tags: PS peteshep Copyright photo Urbino Marches Italy UNESCO World Heritage Site Architecture Historic city Hilltop Giancarlo De Carlo Teatro Sanzio Rampa elicoidale Corso Garibaldi
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