Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
It is written that he was "the only very distinguished man of whom we read, who lived and died without an enemy or detractor!" No better can ever be said of any one. While he dwelt in Perugia and Urbino he had painted the "Ansidei Madonna," so called because that was the name of the family for which it was painted.
Where there was so much care to show honour to the contents of a book by the beauty of its outward form, it is intelligible that the sudden appearance of printed books was greeted at first with anything but favour. Federigo of Urbino 'would have been ashamed to own a printed book.
In 1488, this artist sent her an exquisite chain of gold hearts linked together, which excited general admiration, and may perhaps have been intended as a bridal gift for Elizabeth Gonzaga, the sister of Isabella's betrothed husband, who visited Ferrara that spring, on her way to Urbino.
Several days were spent in parleying, for at Cesena Caesar found the envoys of the Vitelli and Orsini, who themselves were with their army in the duchy of Urbino; but after the preliminary discussions as to the right course to follow in carrying on the plan of conquest, there arose such difficulties between the general-in-chief and these agents, that they could not but see the impossibility of getting anything settled by intermediaries, and the urgent necessity of a conference between Caesar and one of the chiefs.
Girolamo also built the corridor of the Palace at Urbino, above the garden, and he enclosed a courtyard on one side with perforated stone-work executed with great diligence. From the design of the same master, likewise, were begun the Convent of the Frati Zoccolanti at Monte Baroccio and S. Maria delle Grazie at Sinigaglia, which in the end remained unfinished by reason of the death of the Duke.
I should be glad to see you, therefore; only I cannot think how you can leave Florence because of your wife." To Vasari he wrote still more passionately upon this occasion: "I cannot write well; yet, in answer to your letter, I will say a few words. You know that Urbino is dead. I owe the greatest thanks to God, at the same time that my own loss is heavy and my sorrow infinite.
The grace is this, that while Urbino living kept me alive, in dying he has taught me to die not unwillingly, but rather with a desire for death. I had him with me twenty-six years, and always found him faithful and true.
But even these he is unable to finish, since the painting of the chapel absorbs his time and energy. He therefore prays the Pope to use his influence with the Duke of Urbino, so that he may be henceforward wholly and absolutely freed from all obligations in the matter of the tomb.
The pontifical army had a body of eight hundred Germans, on which the Dukes of Urbino and Gandia chiefly relied, as well they might, for they were the best troops in the world; but Vitelli attacked these picked men with his infantry, who, armed with their formidable pikes, ran them through, while they with arms four feet shorter had no chance even of returning the blows they received; at the same time Vitelli's light troops wheeled upon the flank, following their most rapid movements, and silencing the enemy's artillery by the swiftness and accuracy of their attack.
The old Count Federigo had made all this refined magnificence possible, it is true, and Guidobaldo had been in every way a worthy successor to his father, though lacking his rugged strength; but to Guidobaldo's wife, the gracious and wise Elizabetta Gonzaga, belongs the credit for having kept Urbino up to a high standard an achievement of which few, if any, other women of her time were capable.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking