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Federico Da Montefeltro
Federico was a formidable soldier, a shrewd and humane ruler, and a genuine intellectual, qualities which were due in part to his education at the Mantua school of the most prestigious Renaissance teacher, Vittorino da Feltre. Poor scholars and young nobles were educated together in Vittorino’s classes and were taught self-discipline and frugal living as well as the more usual Latin, maths, literature and the courtly skills of riding, diversion and swordsmanship.
As the elder but illegitimate son of the Montefeltro family, Federico only became ruler of Urbino after his tyrannical half-brother Oddantonio fell victim to an assassin during a favourite rebellion. Federico promptly arrived on the scene - fuelling rumours that he’d engineered the uprising himself - and was elected to office after promising not to punish those responsible for Oddantonio’s death, to cut taxes, to wage an educational and medical service, and to allow the people some say in the election of magistrates.
Urbino was a small state with few natural resources and a long way from any major trading routes, so selling the military services of his army and himself was Federico’s only way of keeping Urbino solvent. In high demand because of his exceptional loyalty to his employers, Federico’s mercenary activities yielded an annual income equivalent to £7,000,000/US$11,200,000, a substantial portion of which was used to keep taxes low, thus reducing the likelihood of social discontent during his long absences. When he was at home, he seems to have been a remarkably accessible ruler: he would leave his door open at mealtimes so that any member of his 500-strong court might speak to him between courses, and used to move around his state unarmed (unusual in a time when assassination was common), checking up on the welfare of his people.
Between his military and political commitments, Federico found time to devote to the arts - he delighted in music, but his first love was architecture, which he considered to be the highest form of intellectual and aesthetic activity. He was a friend of the leading architectural theorist, Alberti, and according to his biographer, Vespasiano di Bisticci, Federico’s knowledge of the art was unequalled: “Though he had his architects about him, he always first realized the design and then explained the proportions and all else; indeed, to hear him discourse & it would seem that his chief talent lay in this art, so well he knew how to expound and carry out its principles.” The Dalmatian architect Luciano Laurana was scarcely known until taken up by Federico, while his later commissions included works from the more established Francesco di Giorgio Martini and one of the greatest of all painters and theorists of architecture, Piero della Francesca
