The Light of Italy: The Life and Times of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino

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The story of the Renaissance city and palace of Urbino, and the life of the extraordinary man who created it: Federico da Montefeltro. 'Painstakingly researched and yet unfailingly readable' Ross King 'An insight into one of Renaissance Italy's most glamorous courts' Catherine Fletcher 'The perfect tour guide to the past' Literary Review 'A fabulous merging of seductive design with bravura scholarship' Alexandra Harris 'A superior study... Packed with detail' TLS The one-eyed mercenary soldier Federico da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino between 1444 and 1482, was one of the most successful condottiere of the Italian Renaissance: renowned humanist, patron of the artist Piero della Francesca, and creator of one of the most celebrated libraries in Italy outside the Vatican. From 1460 until her early death in 1472 he was married to Battista, of the formidable Sforza family, their partnership apparently blissful. In the fine palace he built overlooking Urbino, Federico assembled a court regarded by many as representing a high point of Renaissance culture. For Baldassare Castiglione, Federico was la luce dell'Italia - 'the light of Italy'. Jane Stevenson's affectionate account of Urbino's flowering and decline casts revelatory light on patronage, politics and humanism in fifteenth-century Italy. As well as recounting the gripping stories of Federico and his Montefeltro and della Rovere successors, Stevenson considers in details Federico's cultural legacy - investigating the palace itself, the splendours of the ducal library, and his other architectural projects in Gubbio and elsewhere.

Jane Stevenson has taught at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, Warwick and Aberdeen, and is now a Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, Oxford. She is the author of Baroque Between the Wars, a study of alternative currents in the interwar arts, and Edward Burra: Twentieth Century Eye.

Sumptuous illustrations... Jane Stevenson's loving biography [is] the perfect tour guide to the past' * Literary Review * An insight into one of Renaissance Italy's most glamorous courts. The lords of Urbino are not nearly so well-known as the Medici or Borgias, but their architectural and art patronage, and book-collecting, deserve to be recognised - as do their military skills and bloodthirsty intrigues -- Catherine Fletcher In a narrative matching her book's sumptuous illustrations, Jane Stevenson celebrates Urbino as an essential place of pilgrimage for all lovers of Italian art and literature -- Jonathan Keates Jane Stevenson shows us the man - warts, battle scars, collapsed vertebrae and all - behind the myth of one of the most fascinating characters in Renaissance Italy... Painstakingly researched and yet unfailingly readable' -- Ross King A fabulous merging of seductive design with bravura scholarship -- Alexandra Harris A revelatory study of Federico da Montefeltro * Choice Magazine * A fascinating account of the patrons and artists behind the creation of one of Italy's hidden treasures -- Mary Hollingsworth Stevenson conjures the marvellous, intoxicating, brutal and beautiful world of Renaissance Italy with a lightness of touch and an eye for complexity and contradiction, bringing to life the battered, potent and panegyricised figure of a Christian prince, Renaissance patron and ruthless mercenary * Tablet * A splendid series of illustrations ... A superior study packed with detail * TLS *