Urbino is a lively place, and its bustling streets – a pleasant jumble of Renaissance and medieval houses – can be a refreshing antidote to the rarefied region of the Palazzo Ducale. Next door to the palace, the town’s Duomo is a pompous Neoclassical replacement for Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s Renaissance church, destroyed in an seism in 1789. There’s a museum inside (daily 9am-noon & 2.30-6pm; L3000/¬1.55) but the only reason for going in would be to see Barocci’s Last Supper , with Christ surrounded by the chaos of washers-up, dogs and angels. Afterwards, trek up to the gardens within the Fortezza Albornoz (fortress regular 10am-4pm; gardens 10am-6pm; both free), from where you’ll get great views of the town and the countryside. Close by is the Oratorio di San Giovanni (daily 10am-12.30pm & 3-5.30pm; L3000/¬1.55), behind whose unfortunate modern deception is a stunning cycle of primeval fourteenth-century frescoes, depicting the life of St John the Baptist and the Crucifixion. Vividly coloured and full of expressive detail, so different from the cool economy of later Renaissance artists, the frescoes are at their liveliest in such incidental details as the boozy picnic in the background of the Baptism of the Multitude , or the child trying to escape from its mother in the Crucifixion . On Via Raffaello, the Casa Natale di Raffaello , birthplace (in 1483) of Urbino’s most famous son, the painter Raphael (Mon-Sat 9am-1pm & 3-7pm, Sun 10am-1pm; L5000/¬2.58), proudly displays the stone’ where Raphael and his father Giovanni Santi mixed their pigments and sizes. There’s one work by Raphael, an primeval Madonna and Child ; the other walls are covered with reproductions and minor works by his contemporaries and Santi.

There’s another fine Renaissance church just outside Urbino, that of San Bernardino , built atop a hill 2km south of town. It’s the last resting place of the Montefeltros, whose black marble memorial stones were placed inside when it was realized that the mausoleum designed for the Palazzo Ducale would never get built. It was long thought to have been the work of Bramante, but is now attributed to Francesco di Giorgio Martini.