Federico da Montefeltro
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Federico da Montefeltro, also known as Federico III da Montefeltro (June 7, 1422 – September 10, 1482) was one of the most successful condottieri of the Italian Renaissance, and Duke of Urbino from 1444 until his death. In Urbino he commissioned the construction of a great library, perhaps the largest of Italy after the Vatican, with his own team of scribes in his scriptorium, and assembled around him a great humanistic court in one of the great architectural gems of the early Renaissance, the Ducal Palace of Urbino, designed by the architect and theorist Francesco di Giorgio Martini.
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[edit] Biography
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Federico was born in Gubbio, the illegitimate son of Guidantonio da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino, Gubbio and Casteldurante, and Duke of Spoleto.
In his youth he lived in Venice and Mantua as a hostage. In 1437 he was created knight by Emperor Sigismund, and in the same year he married to Gentile Brancaleoni in Gubbio.
At sixteen he began the career as condottiero under Niccolò Piccinino. On July 22, 1444, his half-brother Oddantonio da Montefeltro, recently created Duke of Urbino, was assassinated in a conjure: Federico, whose probable participation to the plot has never been cleared, subsequently seized the city of Urbino.
In the 1450s he fought for the king of Naples and his ally Pope Pius II. He married Battista Sforza, from another successful condottiere family, the masters of Milan. In the pay of the Sforza— for Federico never fought for free— he transferred Pesaro to their control, and received Fossombrone as his share, making a great enemy in the Marches, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, lord of Rimini. In 1459 in Romagna he fought for Pius against Malatesta, soundly defeating him at the Cesano river near Senigallia (1462). The Pope made him vicar of the conquered territories, but when Pius attempted to take personal control of the former Malatesta seat at Rimini, Federico switched sides and fought at the head of an alliance of cities ranged against papal power.
Urbino was raised to a duchy in 1474 by Pope Sixtus IV, who married his favorite nephew Giovanni Della Rovere to Federico's daughter Giovanna. Now Federico fought against his former patrons the Florentines, at the head of Sixtus' army, following the failure of the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478, in which Federico was deeply involved.
He died in Ferrara in 1482, while fighting against Venice.
Federico's son, Guidobaldo, was married to Elizabetta Gonzaga, the brilliant and educated daughter of the lord of Mantua. With Guidobaldo's death in 1508, the duchy of Urbino passed through Giovanna to the Papal family of Della Rovere established by Sixtus IV.
[edit] Portraits
Federico's portraits picture him standing sideways on his left side. During one of his early campaigns Fedrico was blinded in his right eye and carried a vast and disfiguring woundmark for the rest of his life, so that he required to be portrayed only on his 'good' side.
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Franceschini, Gino (1970). I Montefeltro.
- Tommasoli, Walter (1978). La vita di Federico da Montefeltro.
- Rendina, Claudio (1994). I capitani di ventura. Netwon Compton, Rome.
[edit] External links
- Capsule biography, illustrated with Piero della Francesca's portrait of 1465/6
| Preceded by Oddantonio |
Duke of Urbino 1474 – 1482 |
Succeeded by Guidobaldo I |
