CHAPTER SIX

The Urbino Studiolo as an Engine for Governance

And when the night arrives, I return home, and enter into my studiolum; and on the threshold I take off that everyday costume, and put on royal and curial vests; and thus I enter into the ancient courts of those ancient men, where I am lovingly accepted by them, and where I can feed upon that food that is only mine, for which I was born; where I do not feel ashamed to speak with them and ask them about the reasons of their deeds; and they humanely reply to me; and for those hours I do not feel any dullness, forget every affliction, I'm not afraid of poverty, and not anxious of death: I entirely rely upon them.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, from a letter to Francesco Vettori, 10 December 1513

6.1 The Duke's Private Percorso

Fig. 6.1. Federico da Montefeltro in the robes of a humanist scholar.	Fig. 6.2. The city of Urbino and the ducal palace.
Urbino Day

1From Vespasiano da Bisticci's biography for Federico da Montefeltro, we can imagine an ideal summer day for the duke of Urbino, were it ever to have happened, as follows. By dawn's light, unarmed, he would ride out from the palace with a handful of men for morning exercises in the surrounding countryside, returning as others were just beginning to stir. After dismounting, he would attend Mass with his household and townsfolk, since he was "before all things most devout and observant in his religious duties." Afterward, Federico would go into a garden with its doors open to provide counsel to all who wished it, until lunch, when he would join a gathering of up to five hundred guests, citizens and members of the household, including the sons of noblemen committed to the duke for military training.

2As in a monastery, meals at the Urbino court were accompanied by a steady diet of literary readings. "Some one would always read to him; during Lent a spiritual work, and at other times the Histories of Livy, all in Latin." Montefeltro imposed a steady and modest diet for the household; he ate "plain food and no sweetmeats, and drank no wine save that made from such fruits as cherries, pomegranates or apples." Every day, without fail, a good quantity of bread and wine was distributed to those in need. Federico also fasted according to all vigils ordered by the Church, without exception, even when for reasons of health he had received special dispensation from the pope.

3At all hours, between the courses of meals as well, the duke gave audience to anyone who wished, preferring to speak directly with citizens, and promptly resolving matters. After lunch, he would go "into his closet to attend to his affairs and to listen to readings, according to the season. At vespers he went forth again to give audience."

4Early in the evening, he would visit the cloister of Sta. Chiara, which he had built, or the convent of St. Francis, where in a large meadow he would observe thirty or forty of his young men throwing the lance. When he felt necessary, "he would reprove them, in order that they might do better. During these exercises anyone might address him." At the hour of supper Federico would return with the youths to the palace to dine on exemplary food and texts. After, he would challenge the youths under his tutelage to rise early for exercises the following morning, and if there were no further requests for his counsel, "he would go with the leading nobles and gentlemen into his closet and talk freely with them." Afterward, the duke would climb to an observatory above the studiolo before retiring.1

Fig. 6.3. The turrets of the ducal palace.	Fig. 6.4. Axonometric detail of the Urbino ducal palace.
Fig. 6.5. View from loggia, outside Urbino studiolo.

5By drawing these slender but informative threads through spatial sequences in the palace, we may speculate more roundly on the habitual uses of various chambers, including the studiolo. Maria Pernis has proposed, for example, that the north turret2 (lowest of the two depicted in fig. 6.4) was conceived as a spine for the duke's private percorso, a symbolic narrative that "ascended" through the ducal palace from worldly action through physical and spiritual purification to contemplative pursuits, recalling Aeneas's journey in Virgil's Aeneid.3 Before such an ascent would be possible, however, Federico would have first descended (an act no less symbolic) by the scala a lumaca,4 from his bedchambers on the piano nobile to the stables three flights below, at the foundations of the palace.5

Fig. 6.6. The subterranean stables at Urbino's ducal palace.	Fig. 6.7. Access from the stables to the duke's thermal bath (left) and private stairtower (right).
Fig. 6.8. The waters of the thermal bath were heated by a kitchen fireplace on the other side of the wall.

6Following his morning exercise, Federico could have enjoyed the benefits of his thermal bath—one of the earliest of its kind in the Renaissance—modeled by Francesco di Giorgio on examples from Roman antiquity.6 Physical cleanliness, particularly of the hands, was enforced in the five hundred–person household with a rigor that Pernis attributes to a life-threatening malady Federico had contracted as a child.7 As stipulated in the Ordine et officij, an official register of procedures at the ducal palace, everyone—from Urbino's citizens to food handlers and grooms—were bound by a code of conduct and personal hygiene that was unusually thorough for its time.8

7 Fig. 6.9. Scopetta, north wall, Urbino studiolo.The scopetta, one of the devices ubiquitous to the Montefeltro palaces, underscores a perceived symmetry between physical and moral purity. Found in an intarsiated pilaster-capital at Urbino and depicted as an object and emblem in both studioli, the scopetta had been absorbed into the emblems of the Montefeltro through Federico's marriage to Battista Sforza in 1460. At Urbino, a whisk broom is suspended from a nail inside a cabinet in the north wall, where it shares the company of manuscripts by "TVLIO" (Cicero) and "NACA" (Seneca). At Gubbio, the scopetta provides a double reference to the duchess Battista: in addition to its heraldic associations with the Sforza, the scopetta is encircled with pearls, one of the duchess's favorite items. Pearls also adorn the young Guidobaldo in official portraits, likely in remembrance of Battista, who died from pneumonia shortly after giving birth to the prince.9

Fig. 6.10. The duke's private spiral staircase.	Fig. 6.11. Entrance to the Tempietti.
Spiral stairs, Urbino: the duke's descent and ascent	Urbino Tempietti

8Proceeding to the floor above, Federico would have visited the tempietti, twin chambers located directly above the bath and beneath the studiolo. The conditional tense would have is significant: Federico did not have the opportunity to use the chapel, which was completed after his death under Ottaviano's supervision.10 In fact, the tempietti are on the same level (piano terra) as Ottaviano's personal suite of chambers. Before entering the vestibule to the tempietti, an inscription announces to visitors that they stand at the entrance to the City of God: "The person who seeks this sacred threshold with a pure heart, he seeks the shining kingdom of the eternal heaven."11 An inscription in the small vestibule leading to the twin chambers reads: "You see the twin 'sacelli' that are united together but with a slight difference; one of them is dedicated to the Muses while the other is sacred to God."12

Fig. 6.12. Entrance to Capella del Perdono.

Fig. 6.13. Capella del Perdono, from entrance.

9The Cappella del Perdono bears particular religious significance. By intercession of Ottaviano, Pope Sixtus IV "granted a special indulgence to those who visited the Chapel on the Monday after Easter."13 On this occasion, a reliquary known as Il Perdono, normally preserved above the altar, was placed above the room's entrance to be to be venerated by a procession of Urbino's citizens.14 Accordingly, an inscription on the architrave, from the Gospel of John (20:22–23), reads: "Receive the Holy Spirit and the sins of those you will forgive will be forgiven."15

10Aside from the sins Dante recounted in the social register of the Inferno,16 the Montefeltro were respected for their piety, particularly for their support of the Franciscans.17 Federico's "father" Guidantonio, a devout follower of Bernardino da Siena, had invited the saint to preach two of his Quadragesimale at Urbino18 and was buried in a Franciscan habit in the church of San Donato. In addition to sponsoring the construction of numerous monasteries and convents for the order, Federico later commissioned di Giorgio to incorporate this older structure into a new church that was consecrated for San Bernardino.

Fig. 6.14. Detail of The Effects of Good Government. Extended Caption 22	Fig. 6.15. Cabinet with hunting horn, Gubbio studiolo. Extended Caption 22
Fig. 6.16. Tau-shaped tuning key, Gubbio studiolo. Extended Caption 22

11For the adjacent Tempietto delle Muse, the use of which is not as easily determined, several artists, including Raphael's father, the court poet and painter Giovanni Santi, composed an allegorical cycle of portraits of Apollo, Minerva, and the nine Muses. Remaining evidence, including an inscription19 and eight portraits removed to the Corsini Gallery in Florence,20 points to a programmatic complementarity between the tempietti that Pernis attributes to the direct influence of Marsilio Ficino. Where the Cappella del Perdono attends to spiritual purity, the Tempietto delle Muse is dedicated to purity in philosophical and artistic inquiry.21

12 Fig. 6.17. The portraits of the muses conceived for the Tempietto.Further consideration should be given to a word in the vestibule's inscription. Sacella is a figurative term signifying the treasury contained in one's mind. It is one of a list of such terms, including saccula, cella, arca, thesaurus, forulus, loculumenta, cubilia, and scrinium (to name but a few),22 that have been recently plumbed to reveal the depth and continuity of the lineage of architectural mnemonics in the craft of Western thought. A gesture to this tradition would be most appropriate at the threshold of a shrine for the daughters of Mnemosyne.

13In analyzing the tempietti, Luciano Cheles has noted that "what is most 'modern' about them is the association of sacred and profane, for it proclaims a belief in the complementary nature of the Christian and pagan traditions."23 Pernis asserts, with more precision, that the chambers reconcile Christianity with Platonism. As implied in the inscription above the threshold, these traditions remained distinct for the Urbino court yet reconciled by the image of Augustine's City of God.24 The "use" of the Cappella del Perdono and Tempietto delle Muse is thus highly symbolic; their adjacency enables, architectonically, a resolution of forms of wisdom that were widely regarded as contradictory. The reconciliatory position taken by Montefeltro in these delicate matters is evident throughout the palace—in its physical composition and ornamentation, in the contents of its library and the selected influences on the court's scholarship and politics.

Fig. 6.18. Window seat in the duke's dressing room.

Fig. 6.19. Urbino studiolo from Federico's entrance.

14One flight up from the tempietti, the duke would arrive in his dressing chamber for final preparations before proceeding through the studiolo to the Sala d'Udienza.25 On entering the studiolo, Federico would be greeted by the view of the ideal city in the east wall, surmounted by images of Solomon and Aquinas. Drawing toward the center of the room, Federico would see his armor to the left and the miniature studiolo to the right. Although the location of the fictive city between recalls the reconciliatory tone from the tempietti below, the imagery of the east wall alludes even more directly to one of several themes that enlace the studiolo.

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6.2 On Action and Contemplation

15The function of the studioli is not easily pinpointed: the rooms belong to a rubric of small Renaissance chambers, designated by such interchangeable terms as gabinetto, cameretta, scrittoio, and studietto, that were used by their patrons to overlapping and often uncategorical ends.26 As apparent from Vespasiano's biography, the Urbino studiolo served various uses throughout the day, ranging from reflective repose to matters of civil justice, political negotiation, and leisurely conviviality. Each activity reflected a different facet of Federico's brand of governance as duke of Urbino and the underlying influence of a well-rounded, or "mixed," humanist education.

16Immediate precedents to the studioli include the "studies" of Federico's mentors—Pope Nicholas V, Piero de' Medici, and Leonello d'Este—which had been inspired by Petrarch's writings on the benefits of solitude and leisure for intellectual pursuits.27 A popular image from early in the 15th century, depicting Petrarch surrounded in his study by books and instruments, offered artists such as Jan van Eyck, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Sandro Botticelli a prototype for the portraiture of humanist scholars and Church Fathers.28 Leonello d'Este described the appropriate provisions for studious preoccupations: "As well [as books] it is not unseemly to have in the library an instrument for drawing up horoscopes or a celestial sphere, or even a lute if your pleasure ever lies that way: it makes no noise unless you want it to. Also decent pictures or sculptures representing gods and heroes. We often see, too, some pleasant picture of St. Jerome at his writing in the wilderness, by which we direct the mind to the library's privacy and quiet and the application necessary to study and literary composition."29

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

Fig. 6.21. St. Jerome, among the illustrious men in the north wall of the Urbino studiolo.

17The theme of privacy and quiet, a common thread among these chambers and their humanist patrons, occupied one side of the ancient debate concerning the respective values of an active and/or a contemplative life. For his part, Petrarch had resuscitated such classical authors as Pliny the Younger, who in his private letters described his study—"cubiculi mei"—as located near the bedroom and furnished with an armarium containing books to be read "over and over again."30

18Not coincidentally,31 Leon Battista Alberti, who reputedly dedicated an early version (1452) of his De re aedificatoria to Federico,32 described that the husband's and wife's bedchambers should be discreetly joined, with each leading to separate ancillary rooms—the wife's chamber to a dressing room and the husband's into a library. At Urbino, the duke's and duchess's bedchambers were linked by a private external balcony above hanging gardens. Federico's rooms connected to the studiolo, whereas the duchess Battista's contained a private chapel.

19 Fig. 6.22. A passageway connecting the duke's and duchess's quarters.Alberti was also occupied by the dialectic of the vita activa–vita contemplativa.33 Through his own treatise on the subject, De commodis literarum atque incommodis,34 and a study of the Florentine family, Della famiglia,35 Alberti deeply influenced a younger generation of powerful and wealthy soldier-scholars, including Leonello d'Este and Federico, who negotiated their turbulent political climate as much by tactical eloquence as by militaristic valor. The incentive among this new cultural elite to be equally adept with pen and sword was expressed by Vespasiano: "It is difficult for a leader to excel in arms unless he be, like the Duke [Montefeltro], a man of letters, seeing that the past is a mirror of the present. A military leader who knows Latin has a great advantage over one who does not."36

20On a practical level, knowledge of Latin equipped a condottiere with an arsenal of historic examples of Roman strategy in warfare: Vespasiano offers numerous examples of the prudence with which Federico organized and executed his battle plans. More generally, for a military leader with political aspirations, familiarity with letters was vital for matters of governance and conducive to cultivating relations with such powerful scholarly patrons as the humanist popes Nicholas V, Pius II, and Sixtus IV. In his memoirs, Pius II recalls a "sweet and lively conversation" with Federico about the Trojan War during which the count, "who had read much," asked if "the ancients wore armor similar to those of our times." Pius II responded that "Homer and Virgil describe all sorts of arms which are still used in our days, but also many others that have gone out of fashion."37

21Understandably, Federico's historical interests included a keen curiosity toward ancient weapons and machines, like those described by Vitruvius in book ten of De architectura. This curiosity is memorialized at the entrance court of the ducal palace of Urbino, where 72 stone formellae (tablets) were set into the back of a continuous stone bench that wraps the base of the facciata ad ali (winged facade). Executed by Ambrogio Barrocci da Milano, the formellae were carved in relief to represent war machines, hydraulic turbines, and various military and architectural emblems from the sketchbooks of Francesco di Giorgio.38

Fig. 6.23. Triple hoist mechanism carving. Extended Caption 23	Fig. 6.24. "Unfinished" façade of Urbino's ducal palace. Extended Caption 23
Fig. 6.25. The second "wing" of the entry façade. Extended Caption 23	Fig. 6.26. Sala del Conversazione. Extended Caption 23

22The placement of these images in the public forecourt demonstrates the transparency between the duke's endeavors and their direct influence on the health of Urbino and its citizens. "Within his State, Federico's popularity stemmed not only from his benevolent rule, but also from the very large profits derived from his activities as a condottiere, since they enabled him to keep personal taxation at low levels."39 The matter of taxation had direct architectural implications: Federico's colleagues—the Sforza in Milan, the d'Este in Ferrara, and the Malatesta in Rimini—were compelled to fashion their dwellings as fortresses in order to protect themselves from their own citizens, who were often at arms over the lords' high taxation.40

23 Fig. 6.27. Column hoist carving.In addition to extensive construction elsewhere in the dukedom, the Urbino palace was an active construction site for much of Federico's final thirty years of life. This activity intensified between 1474 and 1478, when Federico's reputation, personal health, and earnings were at their zenith. Mechanisms of architectural construction and destruction thus represented the source and investment of Federico's (and the city's) wealth and health. By incorporating these images into the palace facade, at the interface of public and private spheres, the duke and his architect offered citizens a palpable reminder of the interdependence of the House of Montefeltro and the city and lands of Urbino.41

24This relationship is crystallized at the architectonic heart of Federico's governance, in the studiolo, where images of the duke's weapons and armor are interspersed with books and scholarly instruments. Resting against the underside of upturned bench seats we find a sword near the door to the duke's bedchambers and a mace near the passageway to the Sala d'Udienza. A particularly ferocious weapon, the mace symbolized Fortitude, the virtue of "true courage" that, as Castiglione describes, "frees the mind from the passions that it not only fears not dangers, but even pays no heed to them."42 This cardinal virtue, appropriate to a military commander, is represented elsewhere in the studiolo and palace by two of the Montefeltro imprese, an ostrich and an exploding grenade.

25 Fig. 6.28. Clavichord, inlaid with metal strings, Urbino studiolo.The ostrich, shown with a metal spike in its beak, represents tenacity: its accompanying motto, "Ican Verdait En Crocisen," is a mangled rendering of the German idiom "I can digest a large piece of iron." Introduced into Montefeltro heraldry by Federico's grandfather Antonio, the device commemorated the reappropriation of the Montefeltro territories after a long exile.43 Cheles has also suggested that the emblem's proximity to the names of Cicero and Seneca accords with the philosophers' moral fiber.

26The exploding grenade, displayed ubiquitously, was Federico's personal signature of Fortitude.44 In addition to his tactical genius, Federico gained renown for his pioneering use of field artillery against Bartolomeo Colleone and the Venetian forces in 1467.45 Numerous sketches in di Giorgio's taccuino (sketchbook) speculate on the trajectory of missiles, integrating ancient weaponry (scorpions and ballistae) with recent technological advances such as perspective. In these drawings we recognize several instruments from the studioli—including the astrolabe, dividers, level, plumb line, and quadrant—that were common to the quattrocento architect, military engineer, land surveyor, and astronomer. Matched with Federico's strategic skills, the presence of these professionals and their provisions in the theater of battle produced a formidable display that contemporaries regarded as "l'arte del Duca d'Urbino."46

27While praising Montefeltro's Fortitude, Vespasiano emphasizes Federico's "consummate" powers of foresight, stating that the duke triumphed "less by his sword than by his wit."47 Shrewd deployment of learned references was essential to quattrocento politics and warfare. In addition to their usefulness in arranging marriages,48 artfully composed letters were considered invaluable to political negotiations, in which the pen often figured as prominently as the sword. As evident in the studioli, utensils for letter writing—including penne,49 sharpening knives, inkwells, and bottles (as well as eyeglasses)—were essential provisions for a quattrocento study.

Fig. 6.29. View to southeast corner of Urbino studiolo.

Urbino Studiolo

28On first analysis, the composition of the studiolo manifests a clear, bilateral distinction between action and contemplation. Federico's armor and a baton of command (action) are located to the left of the city, while the miniature studiolo (contemplation) is to the right. The portraits of the uomini illustri above, Cheles has noted, appear to correspond to this dialectical arrangement. Cicero and Seneca (eloquence and political ethics) and Moses and Solomon (justice and wisdom in human affairs) are placed above the armor niche, while Homer and Virgil (epic poetry) and Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus (speculative wisdom) are found above the faux studiolo. Diminutive figures of Hercules (accompanied by the Nemean lion) and Atlas "support" this distinction.50 Hercules holds the active Cicero–Seneca and Moses–Solomon in place, while Atlas supports the contemplative Homer–Virgil and Thomas Aquinas–Duns Scotus. In book 1 of Cristofero Landino's Disputationes camaldulenses, an inquiry on the active and contemplative lives dedicated to Federico in the winter of 1473, the character Alberti compares these two mythical figures: "Hercules was wise, but not for himself; all mortals benefited from his wisdom. In fact, during his peregrinations, which covered large parts of the world, he eliminated horrible wild beasts, tamed pernicious and huge monsters, suppressed the most cruel tyrants, and brought back law and freedom to many peoples and nations. Had he stayed with his tutor Atlas, who was devoted to a purely idle wisdom, we would have had a sophist instead of Hercules."51

29Although Federico's achievements were often characterized by contemporary poets as Herculean, the overall disposition of the studiolo contents suggests an inclination of the patron toward peaceful, contemplative pursuits. Whereas books and musical instruments appear abandoned in mid-use, the sword and dagger are sheathed in their scabbards. Likewise, Federico's armor has been removed and stored in an arrangement that recalls a detail from The Virtues of Good Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. In this fresco, a pile of martial armor offers a pillow for the reclining figure of Peace, who in seductive repose turns a receptive ear and extends an olive branch to the viewer. Beside her, as part of an alternating sequence of passive and active virtues, Fortitude is dressed for battle with mace and pavis in hand.52

30 Fig. 6.30. Detail of the virtues from the Allegory of Good Government.Examination of several details in the studiolo reveals a similar interweaving of action and contemplation. Virginia Tenzer has noted that the surfaces against which the sword and mace rest are decorated with vegetal traceries of olive, mustard, and mulberry. The olive branch is associated with peace, the mustard plant with humility and faithfulness, while the mulberry is an attribute of Minerva, goddess of practical wisdom and war. The sword is itself a conflation of the "pen versus sword" dialectic. In addition to its use as a weapon, the sword was a well-known symbol for the image of Justice (as depicted in the ducal palace's Door of the Virtues) and also for the art of Rhetoric. In the ducal library's splendidly illustrated manuscript of Martianus Capella's De nuptiis philologiae et mercurii, Rhetoric is depicted carrying a sword and wearing armor beneath her robes.53 In the official portrait with Guidobaldo, from 1476, Federico is similarly portrayed.

31 Fig. 6.31. Double Portrait of Federico and Guidobaldo da Montefeltro.Throughout the studiolo, visual and linguistic ornament provides ductile channels for narrative interpretation. Whether originating from the studiolo images according to an iconographic program or within the observer's imagination from remembered associations or a combination of both, these interpretations would be guided by rhetorical persuasion as a narrator deemed appropriate. To this end, the images and their architectonic arrangement offered a theater of empathy (theos, seeing) for the complementary influences of narrator and audience.

32At the end of chapter two, I described several examples of etymological play and ethical fabulation from imagery in the east wall. Further evidence of rhetorical play is found in the basket of fruit in the central panel, where pomegranates burst with ripeness.54 From visual and linguistic parallels between an exploding grenade and ripened pomegranate,55 we discern a subtle reference to the interdependence of Duke Federico's leadership and the prosperity of Urbino by the mutual benefits of action (war) and contemplation (peace). This theme encircles the chamber in an ornamental interplay of olive branches (on the bench legs) and pomegranates (on the corresponding pilaster bases behind).

33 Fig. 6.32. Close proximity of olive branch and greave (peace and war).From Federico's perspective, the narrative "significance" of these images could be tailored to the occasion. On one hand, it might be emphasized that the dukedom benefited from the duke's active skills at warfare. Conversely, it might as easily be presented that Urbino's prosperity, exemplified by the palace, the studiolo, and the chamber's contents, resulted from the peace secured by Montefeltro's prudent diplomacy. This might appear to be a splitting of hairs, yet such distinctions were significant for such writers as Castiglione and Alberti's protégé Landino, who states: "It has not escaped you [Duke Federico] that those who have written about social and civic life have divided the whole subject into peace-time and war-time endeavours, pointing out that the first must be sought for their own sake, and the other not for themselves at all but only to recover the first."56 Castiglione notes that the life of the prince ought "to partake both of the active and of the contemplative, as much as may comport with his people's weal."57

34In Federico's time, war was not viewed pejoratively. For a condottiere in particular, the delicate balance of war and peace was essential for the prosperity of the lands and people under his protection, as well as the artists and scholars supported at his court. Imbalance between modes of action and contemplation could cause severe repercussions.58 On a practical level, if there were no prospects for battle or for preserving the peace, there would be no lifeblood economy for cities such as Federico's Urbino and Malatesta's Rimini. If on the other hand warfare were unceasing, resources would be diverted from such peaceful intellectual pursuits as fabricating studioli. Castiglione notes: "To be always at war, without seeking to arrive at the end of peace, is not permitted. . . . [I]t is a monstrous thing and worthy of blame for men to show themselves valiant and wise in war and in peace and quiet to show themselves ignorant and of so little worth that they know not how to enjoy their happiness."59 The virtuous prince, or condottiere, would comport most closely by his people's weal, it was believed, by fighting for peace.

35 Fig. 6.33. Intarsiated figures of Apollo and Minerva.Examples of such prudent leadership were found in historical narratives and contemporary portraiture of illustrious heroes, such as those executed by Taddeo da Bartolo in the antechapel of Siena's Palazzo Pubblico (1414) and by Andrea Castagno for the Villa Carducci (1450). Cheles notes that two leaders depicted in these cycles, Bartolo's Scipio Africanus and Castagno's Queen Tomyris, hold a spear (the weapon of Minerva) with its point turned to the ground, a motif found at Urbino in the intarsiated door leading from the Sala dei Angeli to the Sala del Trono, where Minerva is paired with Apollo. Representative of magnanimity and peaceful intent, this gesture is also found in numerous antique Roman coins featuring "Mars, the pacifier," where the god of war holds his spear turned downward while fixing his gaze on an olive branch in his other hand.60 Resemblance to the image of Peace in Lorenzetti's fresco does not seem chance; it is consistent with the mantra that balance between peace and war, with emphasis placed on peace, affords prosperity.

36Comparable images are found in Montefeltro's personal iconography. A medal cast in 1468 in honor of Federico by Clemente da Urbino includes the astrological signs of Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, encircled by the inscription: "Fierce Mars and the Cytherean Venus, in conjunction with the most high god of Thunder, equally contribute to your power and influence your destiny."61 In the pantheon of the Greek and Roman gods, Harmony/Concordia was the offspring of the god of war and the goddess of love: as daughter of Aphrodite/Venus, Concordia was goddess of marital and civic harmony; as daughter of Ares/Mars, she represented harmonious action in war. Later, in Ripa's Iconologia (1603) the emblem of Concordia includes a plate and crown with bursting pomegranates, an image that is front and center in the Urbino studiolo's east wall.

37Federico's own intarsiated portrait reflects the influence of this imagery (see fig. 6.1). Like Scipio, Tomyris, and Minerva, Federico holds a spear with its point turned downward. Unlike the others, however, the duke is depicted not in battle regalia but rather in humanist robes. This manner of dress literally embodies the Ciceronian phrase "Let arms to the toga yield" that Piccolomini/Pius II had included in his treatise on an ideal education, composed for the king of Hungary in 1450.62

38During his own education, Federico dreamed of emulating the deeds of Scipio, the famed general whose defeat of Hannibal and Carthage ensured regional supremacy for the Republic of Rome. Montefeltro's master, Vittorino da Feltre, advised him otherwise. "I do not wish you to become Scipio, but Alexander: like you, he was the son of a prince, and a prince himself."63 Vittorino predicted, in a letter sent to Guidantonio da Montefeltro, that Federico would be not only a military leader (dux) but moreover a philosopher, embodying the ideals described by Plato in the Republic.64 With arms at rest and instruments of scholarship and "right" leisure as if in mid-use, the studiolo conveys the essence of philosophic rule: the armament of one's body must be matched by a mind well armed with reason.65

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6.3 The Gallery of the Illustrious (Uomini Illustri)

Fig. 6.34. Illustrious men, north wall, Urbino studiolo. North Wall Encomia	Fig. 6.35. Illustrious men, east wall, Urbino studiolo. East Wall Encomia
Fig. 6.36. Illustrious men, south wall, Urbino studiolo. South Wall Encomia	Fig. 6.37. Illustrious men, west wall, Urbino studiolo. West Wall Encomia

39The portraits of the 28 uomini illustri greatly illuminate the scope and demeanor of scholarship pursued by Federico and his court.66 Each theologian, philosopher, poet, lawyer, historian, and doctor represented an exemplary position concerning the nature and uses of wisdom—ancient and modern, sacred and profane, Aristotelian and Neoplatonist. The precise mixture of illustrious heroes reflects Federico's interpretation of the well-established tradition of surrounding oneself with worthy examples for imitation (and emulation) in one's affairs.67 Castiglione notes, "Every man must understand himself and his own powers, and govern himself accordingly, and consider what things he should imitate, and what things he ought not."68 To this end, Machiavelli offers a (modest) metaphor of archery:

Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their actions by imitation. Not being always able to follow others exactly, nor attain to the excellence of those he imitates, a prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to the greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it. He will do as prudent archers, who when the place they wish to hit is too far off, knowing how far their bow will carry, aim at a spot much higher than the one they wish to hit, not in order to reach this height with their arrow, but by help of this high aim to hit the spot they wish to.69

40Though some debate continues about the arrangement of these portraits, Pasquale Rotondi's proposal remains the most satisfactory.70 According to Cheles, the top tier of the paintings manifests an encyclopedic program, embodying "almost a complete spectrum of the leading intellectual fields of the time,"71 while the bottom register is composed primarily of theologians and the Church Fathers.72 En masse, the group embodies various paths to wisdom that would furnish the duke with intellectual and moral equipment for governance. Ensembles within the group provide insight into contemporary philosophical debates.

41The pairing of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, for example, is emblematic of ongoing friction between the Franciscan and Dominican Orders.73 Ripples from this dissent are evident in Vespasiano's biography, in which Federico is said to rate "St. Thomas as clearer than Scotus though less subtle."74 The portrait of Aquinas is placed in a symbolically choice location, directly above the image of the ideal city at the east wall, but we find Scotus's name—and not Aquinas's—in the company of Plato, Seneca, and Tulio (Cicero) in the intarsia. In the dialectics of the day, this arrangement was equivalent to a "balanced scorecard," in which word and image were subjects of delicate diplomacy.75 With this example we detect the well-measured influence of Cardinal Bessarion, who in his In calumniatorem Platonis refers to both Aquinas and Scotus in his reconciliation of Plato with Aristotle, whose portraits are also fittingly next to each other.76 Similarly, the Franciscan pope Sixtus IV, who writes that Scotus and Aquinas differed in words but were of one mind, is portrayed with the Dominican Albertus Magnus.77

42Other notable pairings include Vittorino da Feltre, Federico's "very holy teacher," whose mathematical inclinations placed him at the side of the ancient geometer Euclid, shown with a compass, an object found in both studioli. Cicero and Seneca, representing eloquence and ethical political action, are paired in name among books contained in the north wall as well as by their portraits at the east wall.78 Virgil and Homer, whose names are also twinned in the intarsia, are similarly paired. Their poetic works provided such early humanists as Dante and Petrarch, represented in the lower register of the west wall, with a defensible springboard for their writings. Ptolemy, the paternal figure of astronomy, is coupled with Boethius, whose De institutione musica was included in Vittorino's curriculum at the Ca' Zoiosa for the study of musical theory.

43The association of good laws with the health of the city and its citizens may be detected in the pairing of Solon, whom Aristotle credits with establishing a well-tempered constitution for the city-state of Athens,79 and Bartolus, a lawyer renowned for his fair judgment. Meanwhile, the presence of Pietro d'Abano80 and Hippocrates reflects a special interest at Urbino in recondite principles of astrobiological medicine and its capacity to temper the constitutions of individuals. These arrangements also refer to a broader debate concerning the preeminence of medicine or law and the nature of their respective practices. Collucio Salutati wrote that law was handed down by God at Sinai and as such embraces moral philosophy, whereas medicine, being empirical and experimental, belonged to the mechanical arts rather than the sciences. Poggio Bracciolini and Leonardo Bruni countered that medicine was derived from the universals in Natural Philosophy and that the practice of lawyers, being derived from the situational contingencies of Roman law, was akin to such mechanical arts as cooking, weaving, and carpentry.81

44Physical gestures in several portraits may be traced to Quintilian's Institutio oratoria, "a work which had considerable influence on Renaissance educationalists, including Vittorino." In particular, Cheles cites the "OK" sign made by Petrarch: "If the first finger touches the middle of the right-hand edge of the thumb-nail with its extremity, the other fingers being relaxed, we shall have a graceful gesture well suited to express approval or to accompany statements of facts, and to mark the distinction between our different points."82

45Noting the portraits of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Albertus Magnus, and Dante, Cheles again cites Quintilian's treatise: "The following short gestures are also employed: the hand may be slightly hollowed as it is when persons are making a vow, and then moved slightly to and fro, the shoulders swaying gently in unison: this adapted to passages where we speak with restraint and almost with timidity."83

46Encoded within the paintings, then, are physical gestures deemed exemplary for rhetorical persuasion.84 This matter also concerned Alberti, who in De pictura consults Cicero in his discussion of gestures befitting a painting's thematic and physical arrangement: "Nature provides . . . that we mourn with the mourners, laugh with those who laugh, and grieve with the grief-stricken. These feelings are known from movements of the body."85

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6.4 On the Physicality of Thought: Solitude, Solicitude, and Cogitatio

47Demonstrating a personal regimen later recommended by Machiavelli, Federico remained physically and intellectually active during times of peace by conducting military exercises every dawn and dedicating his afternoon hours to readings and disputation.86 "After rising from [the] table [at midday] and giving audience to all who desired," Federico would repair to his studiolo, at times accompanied by a reader who would read selections from the duke's favorite authors, including Livy and Augustine.87 According to Vespasiano, Montefeltro continued his education to the end of his life by studying with the various scholars invited to the court, including Maestro Lazzaro, with whom he disputed on the "difficult passages" of Aristotle's Ethics and Politics.88 He proceeded to Natural History, Physics, and the theological works of Aquinas and Scotus. Federico's keen interest in logic and disputation would be commemorated in the Gubbio studiolo by his portrait with the goddess of Dialectic. Just before his death, Vespasiano reports, the duke turned his attention to readings of mathematical treatises with the "great philosopher and astrologer" Paul of Middleburg.89

48Federico's withdrawal to the studiolo with his reader reflected a traditional mode of learning and repose by which the duke could "feed upon that food" that was found in the writings of his illustrious heroes and "converse" with them about "the reasons for their deeds." Mary Carruthers has noted that medieval reading was conceived not as a solipsistic activity but more like a "hermeneutical dialogue" between two memories, as a process "whereby one memory engages another in a continuing dialogue that approaches Plato's ideal (expressed in Phaedrus) of two living minds engaged in learning."90 This manner of reading trained the mind in the habit of familiarizing itself with the "foods" of its preference, digesting and incorporating the wisdom of another's text into oneself. As Gregory the Great states: "We ought to transform what we read into our very selves, so that when our mind is stirred by what it hears, our life may concur by practicing what has been heard."91 Reading and feeding were complementary activities. Federico's support of the monastic tradition of reading lessons from scripture and history during meals reflects the continuation of the ancient practice of ruminative familiarization at Urbino.92

49 Fig. 6.38. Note in northwest wall of Gubbio studiolo.Likewise, the slips of paper (notae) found in each studiolo, peeking out of books or "pinned" to the intarsia, represent another medieval technique of impressing significant passages into the memory. Petrarch, whose writings offered subsequent humanists a bridge to medieval and ancient traditions, had composed a private dialogue with Augustine in which the saint encourages him to transcribe wholesome maxims from his readings onto notae and into the margins of his manuscripts. This would provide, he says, "hooks" in the memory to assist with the poet's meditation, "so that whenever or where some urgent case of illness arises, you have the remedy as though written in your mind."93 Such moral elixirs as the phrase "virtutibus itur ad astra," boldly inscribed on a nota and "nailed" to a shelf at Urbino, would have been an especially useful mnemonic for the various modes of solitude afforded by the studiolo.

50Of course, Federico required a different sort of privacy from that prescribed by Petrarch. Although a poet such as Pietro Bembo, a future member of Guidobaldo's court,94 recommended extended periods in a countryside villa distant from worldly cares, the privacy for a prince and military leader was somewhat more limited.95 For Federico in particular, solitude did not necessarily signify tranquillity but often meant a state of acute edge-of-the-seat concentration that was emotional and whole-body, not only mental.

51To better appreciate this active mode of rumination, we refer to Aquinas, who in his digest of Cicero's memory rules had modified the word solitudo to sollicitudo. Carruthers describes this term as an "attitude of mind which vexes or 'worries' [as a dog worries a bone] the emotions and the sensations in order to engage in the activity of making, storing, recalling memory images, to the exclusion of outside strepitus [confusion, noise] and bustle even when it is going on immediately around one."96

52A small room teeming with images might seem to our eye a place too busy, too stimulating, for placid thought. However, in a long-standing tradition, sensory agitation was believed to activate the mind and, in particular, the memory, enabling one to break from the strepitus97 of the external world to focus inward on the matters at hand. Augustine describes the active nature of thought through the term cogitatio: "Once they [thoughts] have been dispersed, I have to collect them again, and this is the derivation of the word cogitare, which means to think or to collect one's thoughts. For in Latin the word cogo, meaning I assemble or I collect, is related to cogito, which means I think, in the same way as ago is related to agito."98

53Agito, "to move, to rouse," describes the fundamental restlessness of cogitatio, which passes "with a wandering movement"99 among things sensed and stored as sense-images (imagines) in the memory. Through cogitatio, "a combinative or compositional activity of the mind,"100 the mind is brought under its own gaze to select, arrange and recombine its contents according to circumstance.101 The ability to concentrate, to shift focus adroitly from one's immediate surroundings, was essential for Federico to form prompt and sound judgments, whether in the course of battle or in civil affairs. Rather than a retreat from everyday concerns, solitude-as-solicitude trained one's habits of concentration in proximity to worldly responsibilities, as a calm in the eye of a storm.102 Leonardo Giustiniani describes the challenging nature of this practice: "In all one's life there is no task so difficult or more worthy of a great man than either not to be moved, or if one's mind is already disturbed, to be able to collect it easily, though it has been scattered far and wide, and place it in a safe and tranquil haven."103 The sensuous intensity of the studioli would have offered the Montefeltro dukes ideal settings for the mind's workings, as places wherein and whereby to shut out strepitus and "collect" themselves to address their duties of governance.

54Throughout the day, as Vespasiano emphasizes, Montefeltro made himself readily accessible to provide counsel for citizens and visiting dignitaries,104 whether between courses at a meal, al fresco in one of the palace courtyards, or in the Sala d'Udienza. If the issue could not be promptly resolved, Federico would withdraw with his reader to the studiolo, where, surrounded by the countenances of the uomini illustri and with recourse to their writings, Federico would give the matter due consideration. His judgments, which were usually "dispatched on the same day," were said not to have been "bettered if they had come before Bartolo of Sassoferato," the famed lawyer included among the uomini illustri.105

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6.5 The Roman Cubiculum

55Understandably, one might be inclined to distinguish contemplative from governmental activities in the studiolo.106 However, contemplative activities were not viewed separately from Federico's responsibilities of governance. The character and composition of the Urbino studiolo, including its proximity to the Sala d'Udienza, would have had as much to do with its function as a judicial chamber as with a propagandistic display of magnificentia.

56In the Art of Building, Alberti had recommended an arrangement of several interconnected rooms to filter between the public and private zones of a palace. "Before the innermost rooms should be an atrium or hall, where clients can await the chance to discuss business with their patrons, and where the prince may sit on the tribunal and give judgment."107 Alberti's humanist interests in ancient Roman texts and architectural ruins directly influenced his writings on these matters. In his discussion of the appropriate arrangement of audience chambers in a princely dwelling, Alberti notes: "I find in Seneca that Graccus, followed by Livius Drusus, was the first not to grant everyone an audience at once, but to divide up the people, and receive some in private, some in company with others, and some en masse, thus distinguishing close friends from secondary acquaintances. If you are wealthy enough, you may prefer to have a number of different doors; these will enable you to dismiss your visitors in a different part from where you had earlier received them, and to exclude any whom you do not wish to receive, without causing offense."108

Fig. 6.39. Axonometric detail of the Urbino ducal palace.	Fig. 6.40. The salon d'udienza (audience chamber).
Urbino Studiolo Loop

57We find this arrangement at the Urbino studiolo (chamber #1), which is connected to three separate rooms—the Sala d'Udienza (#5), the duke's dressing room (#3), and the exterior loggia (#2). In turn, separate doors connect the loggia with the more public salon and more private bedchambers. The duke would have been able to receive certain esteemed visitors in the studiolo—while others waited in the salon—and proceed with them to the external loggia to conclude or continue their discussion while enjoying the magnificent view of the surrounding countryside. Afterward, the guest could depart through the door to the salon rather than having to return by way of the studiolo. By then, another guest could have been admitted to the studiolo, while others waited elsewhere, perhaps in the salon. The architectural arrangement of these rooms would have set the stage for the duke, Ottaviano, and court officials to have enacted the diplomatic choreography recommended by Seneca and Alberti.

58In addition to classical authors, Alberti and Federico witnessed examples of the interplay of architecture and rhetoric through ongoing archaeological excavations in the Roman forum. Texts and ruins revealed that certain areas of the Roman dwelling were designated for "entering into thought." The spatial comportment and ornament of these locations articulated an ambience conducive for thought by providing the sensuous conduits for guiding one's mindfulness to the open construction site of one's memory.

59In book 2 of De oratore, an inquiry into the ideal philosophical orator, Cicero offers a few examples of these domestic settings.109 The character Antonius recounts how Simonides of Ceos had discovered the principles of architectural mnemonics from the banquet table by placing images (imagines) in an orderly set of architectural locations (loci) visualized in his memory.110 Elsewhere in the dialogue, Antonius and Crassus take a siesta to contemplate their responses to matters that others had placed before them. Antonius chooses to compose his thoughts while walking in the portico.111 Crassus, in contrast, retires to an exedra, where he devotes his midday respite to "the closest and most careful meditation."112

60Aside from the portico and exedra, there is another chamber in the Roman house, the cubiculum, to which Crassus (and Cicero, who had purchased Crassus's house) could have repaired to meditatively compose himself and his judgments. Obscure in its origins and function, this chamber remains to this day somewhat misunderstood. The Oxford English Dictionary renders cubiculum (as well as its derivative cubicle) as "bedroom," a logical assessment given its Latin root, cubare, to recline. Otherwise, Vitruvius mentions the cubiculum once, noting that "private rooms [cubicula] and libraries should look to the east, for their purpose demands the morning light."113 Pliny the Younger, as we have seen, offers a more informative comment in his Epistolae, evoking a studious ambience: "My cubiculum has a press let into the wall which does duty as a library, and holds books not merely to be read, but read over and over again."114

61 Fig. 6.41. The cubiculum from the villa of P. Fannius Synistor, 50-40 BCE.A well-preserved cubiculum, extracted from the villa of Fannius Synestor at Boscoreale, may be visited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In accord with traditional scholarship,115 the label describes the cubiculum as a bedroom; to this end, a small couch was previously placed in the room (it has been excluded following a recent restoration). Although this piece of furniture was not original to the chamber, its inclusion was not necessarily erroneous. The error lies in the assumption that the couch would have been used for sleeping and not for other activities. As Philo, envoy to the emperor Caligula, observed: "The couches upon which the Romans recline at their repasts shine with gold and pearls."116 Repasts and siestas were not used merely as periods of eating and sleeping, as their English translations suggest. Instead, as may be gathered from Cicero, this period of the day and the setting of the cubiculum would have been used for "business, for conversation with particular friends, for reading and contemplation."117 Carruthers elaborates:

[Synestor's cubiculum is] just large enough for a single couch. The word Cicero uses, lectulus, meant not just a bed for sleeping, but one for conversation and study—perhaps because of its partial homophony with legere, lectus, "gather by picking" (like flowers) and "read." Its walls are all painted in panels, intercolumnia, with fantastic, theatrical architecture. . . . The murals make a "theater" of locations that, apparently, was assumed to be conducive to inventional meditation—not because it provided subject-matter, but because the familiarity, the route- (and rote)-like quality, of such a patterned series in one's most tranquil space could help provide an order or "way" for compositional cogitation.118

62 Fig. 6.42. Mnemonic ornament from the cubiculum from the villa of P. Fannius Synistor, 50-40 BCE.In addition to the peripatetic mode of composition preferred by Antonius, Romans meditated in a reclined position—at times in a more public exedra, at others in the more private cubiculum.119 The linguistic twining of bed and reading, via Cicero's lectulus, continued into the Renaissance: Castiglione includes the interpolation as an exemplary pun in his discussion of an ideal courtier's sense of humor.120 However, as evident in such quattrocento portraiture as Antonello da Messina's portrait of St. Jerome, the posture for thought had shifted from a reclined to a seated position; Cicero's "daybed" had been replaced as the furniture-for-musing by the reading lectern.

Fig. 6.43. Drawing of St. Jerome in His Study.	Fig. 6.44. Operable intarsia panels folded open, Urbino studiolo.
Fig. 6.45. Reconstruction of lectern arrangement.

63In each of the Montefeltro studioli, lecterns figure prominently. At Urbino, a large lectern is featured in the miniature studiolo: adjacent panels fold out to form what Rotondi has proposed as a bench and reading stand. It is doubtful, however, that this arrangement accounts for the "tavola" that Baldi places toward the middle of the chamber.121 On closer scrutiny, the physical components of Rotondi's proposal do not appear sturdy enough to support this argument. More likely, this design gesture gave the duke another visual delight to demonstrate to visitors, particularly with regard to its proximity to the studiolo-within-a-studiolo. Because the studiolo was used for reading and letter-writing, the tavola was probably a freestanding intarsiated lectern, as was then popular.122 Perhaps it was similar to the mobile lectern depicted at Gubbio.

64From all accounts, it is apparent that Federico used the Urbino studiolo in a manner akin to the Romans' use of the cubiculum. In the Sala d'Udienza, Federico received visitors seeking counsel. After hearing their news or requests, Federico would retire to the studiolo, where the presence of a well-learned reader, Maestro Lazzaro, would have offered a worthy adviser to dispute the finer points of pertinent texts, political as well as theoretical, assisting the duke to arrive at a decision.

65To draw an even more concrete connection between the studiolo and cubiculum, we might return, in full, to the phrase from Pliny's Epistolae mentioned earlier: "Parieti eius cubiculi mei in bibliothecae speciem armarium insertum est quod non legendos libros sed letitandos capit."123 In his analysis, Cheles crops cubiculi mei from his translation of the phrase, perhaps because of its traditional misinterpretation as "bedroom."124 When we restore to the cubiculum its studious significance, we realize that Cheles was more correct in his comparison than he may have realized: the physical description of Pliny's cubiculum concurs precisely with the physical arrangement of the Urbino studiolo.

66During World War II, when the studiolo contents were dismantled and temporarily removed to the castle at San Leo, a blind cavity—not a concealed structural pilaster or vertical conduit—was discovered behind the image of the ideal city.125 It is plausible, then, that the book press had been built precisely to fulfill Pliny's specifications, providing storage for equipment appropriate to a study126 and books "to be read and read again"—in this case, authoritative texts and documents to be readily consulted, as the duke (and his interlocutor) desired.

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6.6 FEDE+RICO and the Faithlessness of Princes

67Among the affairs Federico conducted in the studiolo at Urbino, not all were ruminative, convivial, or particularly civil. Although Dora Thornton states that the Urbino studiolo would "surely" not have been used for "the most secret negotiations of Federico's government, which would properly have taken place in his bedchamber,"127 an episode recounted by Vespasiano suggests otherwise: "While the Venetian messenger was at Urbino it chanced that one of the Duke's chief officers was in his closet [studiolo], and after the Venetian had left, he turned to the Duke and said, 'Eighty thousand ducats is a good price simply for staying at home'; whereupon the Duke replied wisely, 'To keep faith is still better, and is worth more than all the gold in the world.'"128

68In 1482, Pope Sixtus IV had formed an alliance with Venice, whose expansionist interests had turned toward Ferrara, home of Federico's long-standing allies, the d'Este. Sensing that Federico would not agree to carry out this strategy, the Venetians sent an ambassador to bribe Federico to "stay at home." Federico, fearing that the balance of power would shift too far in favor of the Venetians, refused the offer and led the forces of Florence, Milan, and the king of Naples to defend Ferrara.129

69The outcome of quattrocento Italian politics and warfare was often determined by what would today be considered behind-the-scenes negotiations. In these matters of political chess, the studiolo imagery would have offered Montefeltro an effective means to narrate a firm but lighthearted diplomacy. For example, following the Venetian messenger's proposition, Federico could have conveyed his guest's attention to the personification of Faith in the south wall (standpoint #1 in Fig. 6.38), and then to an adjacent cabinet in which the letters F E D E are found on four facets of an octagonal inkwell. Here, in a demonstration of rhetorical chreia (an edifying anecdote), the duke could pause to reflect on the virtue of religious devotion and its earthly counterpart, loyalty. If the messenger were to ask what would become of the "riches" represented by the second half of the duke's name (since the remaining four facets of the inkwell are "obscured" from view), Montefeltro could redirect his narrative to the fronts of two box-drawers located directly behind them, in the northwest corner of the studiolo (standpoint #2). There they would find a drawer with "RI" in its rightful slot, while a drawer displaying "CO" had been "removed" and "placed" on the bench below.

Fig. 6.46. Worm's eye view of two station points for appreciating Federico's faithfulness.	Fig. 6.47. Images of Faith, personified and symbolized in south wall, Urbino studiolo.
Fig. 6.48. Inkwell with letters FEDE and rosary above, in south wall, Urbino studiolo.	Fig. 6.49. Box-drawers in northwest corner of Urbino studiolo.
Fig. 6.50. Box-drawers in northwest corner of Urbino studiolo.

70Federico might then remind the messenger of a previous occasion, in 1467, when his contract with the king of Naples had terminated and Venice attempted to hire away his services. When the Venetians presented a letter of their offer, Federico shrewdly passed it along (unopened) to the commissaries of the Italic League, as a gesture of loyalty to the king, his most loyal patron.130 Federico might then have diplomatically concluded (as his biographer Vespasiano would later write) that "all those to whom he gave his word bear witness that he never broke it . . . whether under obligation or free."131

71An observant messenger would have noticed that the letters on the drawers for "FE" and "DE" were obscured, a subtlety that heightens the spatial experience (and underscores the intent) of this trope on the duke's name, which means literally "rich with faith."132 A keenly observant messenger would have noticed that the object covering the "DE"—an ermine—was also found beneath two of the three theological virtues. And even if the messenger were not curious about these subtleties, the duke would likely have pointed them out, jesting that the intarsists had absentmindedly left the bench below the portrait of Faith "upturned," hiding the third ermine.

Fig. 6.51. Image of ermine and phrase "non mai," Gubbio studiolo.

Fig. 6.52. Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of Cecilia Gallerani.

72Federico would not have needed to explain the significance of this animal, a popular image of purity and loyalty. The accompanying phrase "non mai" (never) refers to the tradition that an ermine would rather die than soil its pure white coat. The messenger would also have noted that the king of Naples had installed Duke Federico as a member of the Order of the Ermine in August 1474: the collar of the order is found dangling from the "DE" box-drawer at Urbino, and (sans ermine) encircling the initials FE DuX in four ceiling coffers at Urbino. The collar is also found at the Gubbio studiolo above the entryway and in Berreguete's portrait of Federico and Guidobaldo. It is also possible, as Raggio suggests, that the ermine and the phrase "non mai" carried more personal associations for Federico, as a declaration of innocence in the assassination of his younger brother, Duke Oddantonio da Montefeltro, in 1444.133

73Apart from its theological significance, faith-as-loyalty appears to have been a scarce commodity in the late quattrocento. According to Machiavelli, "One could furnish an infinite number of modern examples, and show how many times peace has been broken, and how many promises rendered worthless, by the faithlessness of princes."134 Federico was well schooled in these matters. During the Battle of Rimini (1469), in which Federico assisted in the city's defense, forces from Milan and Florence had been promised but did not "keep faith." With his skill in drawing up a clever plan of battle and binding his men to enforce it, Federico won the battle against superior numbers "more by science than by force."135

74Loyalty was evidently a challenge for soldiers as well as princes. A leader, if not directly experienced in these matters, could not evoke the confidence to bind even his own men to enact his strategies.136 In this light, then, "keeping faith" reflected a prince's capacity to harness and conduct the will of others. For his skill in these matters, Federico gained particular renown. In the Apologus to his translation of Plato's De regno, dedicated to Montefeltro on 6 January 1482, Marsilio Ficino plays on the duke's name, describing in a witticism that Federico was known as "a fide regia fideregum" and "ab orbis imperio Orbinatem ducem" by superior intelligences and as "Federicus Urbinas dux" by men.137

75It is at times difficult to regard the honorific titles and humanist panegyrics bestowed on a figure such as Federico da Montefeltro without reservation. This is particularly true when Machiavelli, who writes from a perspective following numerous tides of foreign invasion, lays direct blame for the demise of the Italian nation on the condottiere, whose benign code of military execution he believes had reduced Italy to "slavery and degradation": "They used every means to spare themselves and the soldiers any hardship or fear by not killing each other in their encounters, but taking prisoners without expectation of ransom. They made no attacks on fortifications by night; and those in the fortifications did not attack the tents at night, they made no stockades or ditches around their camps, and did not take the field in winter. All these things were permitted by their military code, and adopted, as we have said, to avoid trouble and danger."138 When we compare Machiavelli's criticisms with specific accounts of Montefeltro's activities, we may discern why Federico had gained the esteem of his contemporaries. On several occasions, Vespasiano underscores how the duke kept faith in the face of daunting opposition and recounts how he led nighttime raids on enemy fortifications.139 Until recently, Montefeltro's reputation, bolstered by biographers and historians, had exculpated him on points for which condottieri were generally held in contempt.

76It is tempting yet misleading to interpret the actions of Federico and his contemporaries according to normative categories of good and bad, or to evaluate their passion for honorifics and panegyrics as either "historically accurate" or "inflated." By entering the thicket of images in the studioli to ponder their meanings and workings, we are thrust into the messy webs of their surrounding culture. Machiavelli's suggestion, for example, that a prince "not deviate from what is good, if possible, but be able to do evil if constrained," must be appreciated in context.140 Although political and military leaders were exhorted to virtues of constancy and temperance, the late quattrocento (and early cinquecento) was not a juste milieu, as Machiavelli illustrates:

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation. A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.141

Although Machiavelli agrees with the common wisdom that a prince should ideally manifest all of the best qualities and virtues (including his own list of five essential characteristics), he asserts that this is not realistic in practice.142 Human conditions preclude the possibility of possessing or observing all of these qualities, so the prince should be "prudent enough to avoid the scandal of those vices [that] would lose him the state. . . . And yet he must not mind incurring the scandal of those vices, without which it would be difficult to save the state, for if one considers well, it will be found that some things which seem virtues would, if followed, lead to one's ruin, and some others which appear vices result in one's greater security and well-being."143 In other words, a prince's "goodness" might harm his state under certain circumstances, where an act of vice might be necessary to preserve it. "To learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it," is a subtle twist of Cicero's definition of prudence as "the knowledge of what is good, what is bad and what is neither good nor bad."144 Machiavelli's recommendation offers a shrewd point of entry into the realm of ethics, the subject Federico disputed exhaustively with his readers.145

77To preserve the state, asserts Machiavelli, a prince must know how to fight by two methods: the laws of men and the force of a beast. As a beast, the prince "must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves."146 Of these two modes, Machiavelli notes, "Those that have been best able to imitate the fox have succeeded best."147 Although martial images throughout the studiolo and palace lionize Montefeltro's Fortitude, it is clear from Vespasiano's biography that Federico inclined naturally to the shrewd action and policy of the fox.

78After Federico assumed command of Urbino in 1444, Sigismondo Malatesta intensified the ancient feud with the Montefeltro by sending letters to Francesco Sforza of Milan and Cardinal Ludovico Scarampo, a papal legate, in which he attacked Federico's character while implicating him in the assassination of Oddantonio. Further, Sigismondo challenged Federico's legitimacy, reasoning that the marriages of two of Count Guidantonio da Montefeltro's sisters to members of the Malatesta family should have entitled him, and not Federico, to rule Urbino.

79Fortunately for Federico, a secretary of the cardinal intercepted and forwarded the letter to Urbino, and on 8 January 1445, Federico's response was delivered to both the cardinal and Sigismondo. In this letter, "a masterpiece of libellous eloquence,"148 Federico lists the various atrocities that Sigismondo had allegedly committed, condemning him to Dante's Inferno. In addition to annulling Malatesta's charges, this letter was later used by Pope Pius II as "evidence" in a trial against Malatesta. Pius II appointed Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa to conduct the proceedings, which concluded with Sigismondo's excommunication and the burning of his straw effigy on the Campidoglio, in the Campo dei Fiori, and on the steps of St. Peter's Cathedral.

80A key to apparent contradictions in Federico's world is reflected in the multifaceted character of virtù. Although often portrayed as the hallmark of inflated humanist rhetoric,149 the exercise of virtù was believed to cultivate a well-tempered character, enabling prince, courtier, and craftsman to maintain a sapient balance regardless of circumstance. In mid-quattrocento Italy, balance was critical to negotiate such intricate intellectual and political matters as the continued strife between church and empire and the reintegration of Byzantine scholarship and culture with the ideologies of the Roman Church following the fall of Constantinople in 1453.150

81Beneath the scholarly hubris and "moralistic patina" that have accumulated around this term,151 exhortations to virtù addressed the delicate workings of the human psyche and, by extension, the fragile nature of human relationships.152 As with the liberal arts, categorical distinctions of the virtues153 were fluid and ever-shifting, affording easier digestion of notions that are otherwise densely intertwined. The roll call of virtues in the works of Castiglione, Landino, and Machiavelli were not perceived, in their own time, as banal panegyrics;154 rather, they approximated an ideal concert (or concord) of actions and responses, offering practical guidelines that could be tailored to contemporary social and political mechanics.155

82 Fig. 6.53. Detail of "virtutibus itur ad astra," north wall, Urbino studiolo.The significance of virtù in the Montefeltro studioli is emphatic. Cheles has discerned a valuable link between the phrase "virtutibus itur ad astra," represented at Urbino, and the opened manuscript of Virgil's Aeneid, displayed on the lectern in the Gubbio studiolo.156 The page shown at Gubbio contains the following passage: "Each has his day appointed; short and irretrievable is the span of life to all: but to lengthen fame by deeds—that is valour's task."157 Elsewhere in the Aeneid we find the phrase "macte nova virtute, puer: sic itur ad astra."158 Selecting the corresponding terms in the Urbino studiolo, the phrase reads "with virtue/valour, so man scales the stars."

83Although Virgilian virtù was steeped in military connotations, an aspect fitting to Duke Federico's livelihood, the measure of a prince was determined not only by his valor during war and strife but more acutely by his conduct during times of peace. According to Castiglione, "It is fitting in war, and always, to have all the virtues that make for right—like justice, continence [fortitude], temperance; but much more in time of peace and ease, because men placed in prosperity and ease, when good fortune smiles upon them, often become unjust, intemperate, and allow themselves to be corrupted by pleasures."159 For Federico and his contemporaries, the notion of virtù encompassed the military valor expressed in Virgil's Aeneid, the moral and ethical overtones of pantheistic and Christian wisdom, and the skills demonstrated in the craft of thought and material artifacts. Whether embodied as a virtuous deed, as the virtuous civic setting wherein the deed took place, or as the registration of the deed and its setting by the virtuoso work of an artist, virtù effected empathy among human emotions, the divine, and the sensible realm of materials. As an integration of the visible and invisible, virtù accessed the pantheon of communal memory.

84The role of the architect was pivotal in these matters. As beneficiary of the well-rounded education associated with the cultivation of virtù, the architect was ethically responsible for shaping the actions of men through the built environment. Alberti notes, "There is nothing, aside from virtue, to which a man should devote more care, more effort and attention, than to the acquisition of a good home to shelter himself and his family."160 The virtù of dignified houses enabled families and city-states alike to weather the unpredictable influences of contemporary politics and chance.

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6.7 The Influence of Politics on Patronage

85In response to the fall of Constantinople, the Peace of Lodi in 1454 unified the five powers of the Italic peninsula—the Papal States (including Urbino), Naples, Venice, Florence, and Milan—into the mutual defense alliance of the Italic League. From its inception, the alliance was tenuous: concessions were made on all accounts in order for agreement to be reached among its intricately intermarried and perpetually embattled members.161 Francesco Sforza, previously a condottiere employed by the Visconti, was installed as duke of Milan to protect the territory from possible dynastic claims made by the French king. This in turn offered stability to the Venetians, who were threatened by Ottoman expansion162 and were concerned about the prospects of a French invasion.

86As a result of this alliance, friendships Federico had cultivated during his itinerant education as a youth—with the Gonzaga, Sforza, d'Este, and Medici—gave the young count a unique opportunity. Admired for his loyalty and shrewd diplomacy, characteristics not commonly associated with condottiere at the time,163 Federico was elected captain of the league.164 Paid during times of war and peace alike, Federico played a pivotal role as arbitrator among the league's members. Although the Italic League endured, officially, for almost 25 years—from the Peace of Lodi to the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478—the powers never ceased to align and realign themselves according to strategic suballiances.

87The perpetual imbalance of these alliances and rivalries directly influenced artistic and intellectual patronage and commerce. In the same year that Alberti visited Urbino (1464) and had his horoscope cast by Jacob of Speier, Federico's astrologer, the newly elected Pope Paul II, disbanded the College of Abbreviators. Recently established by Federico's staunch supporter, the humanist Pope Pius II, the college had provided a lively intellectual center (and a source of gainful employment) for Alberti and such like-minded scholars as Bartolomeo Platina, who had instructed Marsilio Ficino in Greek and would later become the first official librarian of the Vatican Library. Platina, a trained soldier who, like Federico, had studied at the Ca' Zoiosa and served under the famed General Niccolò Piccinino, was chosen by his colleagues to protest the pope's decision. Known for his hot temper as much as his eloquence, Platina was subsequently imprisoned and narrowly escaped execution.165

88The extreme nature of these events reflects the volatile interdependence of politics and scholarship. At the time, Paul II (the Venetian Pietro Barbo) had just won a bitterly contested election over Cardinal Bessarion, a scholar who had emigrated from Byzantium by way of Greece and subsequently became deeply involved in the politics of Venice and of the Holy See. As noted in the encomium on his portrait in the Urbino studiolo, Bessarion had supported the unification of the Greek and Roman Churches as early as 1438. Through his influential treatise In calumniatorem Platonis (1458–69),166 Bessarion sought to resolve the heated philosophical dialectics problematizing this union by reconciling the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. In this treatise, as Paul Kristeller notes: "Bessarion not only defends Plato's life and doctrine against the attacks of [scholars such as] Trapezuntius, but he also describes Plato's contributions to the various fields of learning and then presents Plato's metaphysical doctrines with an emphasis both on their intrinsic merits and on their agreement with Christian theology. Bessarion treats Aristotle with great respect and tends to harmonize him with Plato rather than to criticize him. He often cites the Latin theologians, especially Augustine, Aquinas, and Duns Scotus."167

89 Fig. 6.54. Cardinal Bessarion, among the illustrious men in the south wall of the Urbino studiolo.
Extended Caption 24At the Congress of Mantua in 1459, Pius II charged Bessarion and Nicholas of Cusa with convincing Venice to participate in a new crusade to recapture Constantinople.168 As of 1463, Bessarion had been placed in charge of the expanding settlement of Greek émigrés in Venice. Although he had converted to Latin Catholicism in 1438, these positions of authority, held by a Byzantine with a stated agenda to preserve his own vanishing culture, likely posed a threat to members of the Venetian aristocracy and the Holy See. Nonetheless, Bessarion's intellectual and political motivations ingratiated him with humanist leaders and scholars, with whom he openly shared the rarities of his famous library and the benefits of his influence. Bessarion had secured Platina's appointment to the College of Abbreviators, and his secretary, the German mathematician Johannes Müller (Regiomontanus), proved deeply influential in Rome and on the practice of astronomy at Urbino.169 Piero della Francesca, another member of Bessarion's circle in Rome, later received Montefeltro's patronage.170

90As Federico's "wisest, and best of friends," Bessarion was godfather to all three of the duke's sons and exhorted them to study the classics.171 To this end he presented Antonio, whom he baptized in 1450, with Homer's Iliad, in Greek.172 Following Bessarion's death in 1472, Federico served as the executor of the cardinal's will, a task that included the transfer of a major portion of Bessarion's library to Venice, as the foundation for what would become the Library of St. Mark. For nearly two years, thirty chests of books containing rare works of Euclid and Ptolemy—previously inaccessible to Italian scholars—were stored in the cloister of Sta. Chiara, a few hundred meters from the ducal palace at Urbino. The presence of these chests in Urbino from 1472 to 1474 coincides with the beginning of two projects central to Federico's aspirations, the formation of the ducal library and the conception of the studiolo.

91Almost twenty years after the incident of the abbreviators, Federico and Marsilio Ficino encountered similar complications of fortune. In 1472, Federico had endeared himself to Ficino's patron, Lorenzo de' Medici, through his rapid and decisive victory over Volterra.173 In gratitude, Federico was richly rewarded with one of the prized possessions of Volterra—a Bible composed in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin174 —as well as with a ceremonial jousting helmet designed by Antonio Pollaiuolo, the dedication of Cristofero Landino's Disputationes camaldulensis, and residences in Florence and its countryside.

92By the time that Ficino was prepared to dedicate a collection of his own works to the duke, alliances had again shifted. On 26 April 1478, in a conspiracy often attributed to Cardinal Girolamo Riario and members of the Pazzi family, Lorenzo was wounded and Giuliano murdered in an attack on the two Medici brothers in the Florence cathedral during Mass. Although absolved of involvement, Federico was bound by contract to Riario's uncle, Sixtus IV, and was summarily counted among the enemies of the Medici.175

93It now appears that for the past five hundred years Federico had outfoxed historians as well as his contemporaries; a letter recently discovered in a private Urbino archive suggests that the duke may have in fact orchestrated this fateful event. According to Marcello Simonetta, who discovered and decrypted the letter, Federico personally insisted on eliminating the Medici brothers, offering "550 soldiers and fifty knights and expressing gratitude for the pope's gift to . . . Guidobaldo, a golden chain that represented legitimization of the Montefeltro dynasty under papal jurisdiction."176

94As a result of this incident, Ficino had to postpone his offering to Federico, though he would not have long to wait. By 1482, Sixtus IV had formed a new alliance with Venice, which had turned its own expansionist interests toward Ferrara, the seat of the d'Este. Fearing that the balance of power would shift too far in favor of the Venetians, Federico withdrew his services from the pope and joined Florence and Milan in defending Ferrara. It would be the duke's final campaign. Thus it was in the spring of 1482, instead of 1477, that Ficino received Lorenzo de' Medici's consent to dedicate his works to Federico, a condition that may also have influenced completion of the intarsia for the Gubbio studiolo, executed in the Maiano workshop in Florence.177

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6.8 Temperance and the Golden Mean

95The quattrocento mind was habituated to the probability that today's ally could well be tomorrow's rival, to become again an ally the following day. Machiavelli observes, "Let no state believe that it can always follow a safe policy, rather let it think that all are doubtful."178 In 1467, Florence, Milan, and Naples formed the Anti-Venetian League. Seven years later, Venice was in league with Florence and Milan. In 1478, Florence was at war with Naples and the Papal States. By 1480, the alliances had completed a full circle, when Florence signed a treaty with Naples and joined with Milan against Venice and the Papal States.

96With one's economic and intellectual latitude ineluctably drawn by these uncertain politics, discretion was a maxim. Even a highly educated condottiere was not immune from scrutiny in these matters. Although Sigismondo Malatesta was renowned and feared for his intelligence and battle skills, his penchant for the extreme—such as his overzealous advocacy of the Byzantine arch-Neoplatonist Gemisthus Pletho179 —alienated the Holy See and contributed to his eventual excommunication.

97 Fig. 6.55. Pletho's sarcophagus, ensconced in the southwest wall of the Tempio Malatestiano.In this changeable climate, it was wise to seek a "mean" between transparency and opacity with others, representing as much a deepened understanding of oneself as a diplomatic approach to interpersonal relations. As Aristotle describes in the Nichomachean Ethics: "By the mean which is relative to ourselves I denote that which is neither too much nor too little, and this is not one and the same for everybody. . . . [A]n expert in any field avoids excess and deficiency, and seeks and chooses the mean—that is, not the objective mean but the mean relatively to ourselves."180 Evoking metaphors of calculable measure, the notion of the "mean" dovetailed with Temperance, a cardinal virtue that provided practical advice for moderation and self-regulation in one's character and everyday activities; in education, diet and exercise, governance, and leisure.

98Temperance is derived from the Latin temperare, to mix in due proportions. As reflected by its personification in the Door of the Virtues at Urbino, this definition stems from the ancient Greek symposium, or drinking party, at which the levity or gravity of an occasion was determined by mixing the wine with prescribed amounts of water. An example of this practice is found in the beginning of Plato's Symposium, a work deeply influential to the Urbino court.181

Fig. 6.56. Papagalli and mechanical clock, Urbino studiolo.	Fig. 6.57. Hourglass, Urbino studiolo.
Fig. 6.58. Ingenioq cabinet, Gubbio studiolo.

99Etymologically akin to weather and time, qualities of perpetual change, Temperance is also represented by mechanical clocks and the hourglass.182 In the Urbino studiolo, an elaborate clock appears on the door leading to the duke's bedchambers, and an hourglass occupies a cabinet shelf in the north wall, above the names of Virgil and Homer, alongside the personification of Hope. A second hourglass is found beside the lectern in the miniature studiolo, a particularly jocund play of temporal and spatial layering.

100The concept of a proportional mean for contemplation and material fabrication preoccupied the Franciscan polymath Fra Luca Paci

Architecture and Memory

The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro

Robert Kirkbride

Table of Contents

CHAPTER SIX

The Urbino Studiolo as an Engine for Governance

6.1 The Duke's Private Percorso

6.2 On Action and Contemplation

6.3 The Gallery of the Illustrious (Uomini Illustri)

6.4 On the Physicality of Thought: Solitude, Solicitude, and Cogitatio

6.5 The Roman Cubiculum

6.6 FEDE+RICO and the Faithlessness of Princes

6.7 The Influence of Politics on Patronage

6.8 Temperance and the Golden Mean