The construction of the Ducal Palace was begun for Duke Federigo da Montefeltro around the mid-fifteenth century by the Florentine Maso di Bartolomeo. The new construction included the pre-existing Palace of the Jole. Luciano Laurana, an architect from Dalmatia who had been influenced by Brunelleschi’s cloisters in Florence, designed the façade, the famous courtyard and the great entrance staircase. Laurana’s light and noble arcaded courtyard at Urbino rivals that of the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome as the finest of the Renaissance. Overcoming the exigencies of the clifflike site, which made an irregular massing of architecture necessary, from the 1460s onwards Laurana created what contemporaries considered the ideal princely dwelling.
The Palace’s FaçadeAfter Laurana’s departure from Urbino in 1472, works were continued by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, who was mainly responsible for the façade decoration. The portals and the window sculptures were executed by the Milanese Ambrogio Barocci, who was also the decorator of the interior rooms. In high, plainly stuccoed rooms the richly sculptured doorways, chimneys and friezes created by Barocci, Domenico Rosselli, and their workshops stand out. After the death of Duke Federico (1482), the construction was left partially unfinished. The second floor was added in the first half of the following century by Girolamo Genga.
The palace continued in use as a government building into the 20th century, housing municipal archives and offices, and public collections of antique inscriptions and sculpture (the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, see below). Restorations completed in 1985 have reopened the extensive subterranean network to visitors.
