Federico da Montefeltro, the condottiero-duke who ran Urbino as a model Renaissance state, began his palace around 1454 and by 1465 had hired the Dalmatian architect Luciano Laurana to build its twin-turreted facade, a design so influential it became shorthand for the ideal court.
Inside, Federico retreated to a tiny studiolo just over three meters across, its walls entirely inlaid in wood (intarsia) with trompe l'oeil shelves of books, armor, and instruments, a private illusion built for a man who read constantly and trusted almost no one. The palace now holds the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, whose greatest possession is Piero della Francesca's Flagellation of Christ, a small panel whose staged, geometrically precise scene has puzzled historians for over a century.
