Marche Breaks

It was in central Italy that the Renaissance first took root. This great cultural explosion was not merely a school of painting, a style of sculpture or an architectural fashion, but an entirely new way of seeing the world.

It was not until the 19th Century that Jacob Burckhardt used the French word Renaissance to identify Italy as the progenitor of a chapter in human history that still conditions much of our perception of the modern world. What he saw as the key to the period was the growth of individualism - where Medieval man had been content to work in collective anonymity to the greater glory of God, his Renaissance counterpart was much more interested in his own greater glory. Fame or notoriety - it mattered little which - became the goal, and competitive talent was all.

Poets, painters and scholars looked to Ancient Rome and Greece as the source of all nobility and wisdom, and paganism and Christianity uneasily shared the same bed. Humanism released thought from the strait-jacket of Medieval superstition while wealthy patronage fostered the cult of personality.

The cradle of this revolution was Florence, that great cultural crucible which produced such masters as Dante, Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, and Brunelleschi. Its effect quickly spread throughout Italy producing an unparalleled interest in art and culture.

Outside Florence, few centres of art and learning rivalled that of the court which Duke Federico da Montefeltro established in Urbino. His Ducal Palace, built by Luciano Laurana and completed by the great military architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini, is one of the finest examples of a Renaissance palace in all Italy. Martini left his mark in other Marche towns, building Sassocorvaro Castle, strengthening the Duke's fortress at San Leo and designing the Palazzo della Signoria in Jesi. Elsewhere in the Marche, wealthy families were building their own Renaissance palaces, and town rulers were creating fine piazzas to reflect the spirit of the age, among them the magnificent Piazza del Popolo in Ascoli Piceno.

Duke Federico's palace now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche which includes three Early Renaissance masterpieces - The Flagellation and Madonna of Senigallia by Piero della Francesca and The Ideal City, a work now attributed to the Duke's architect Luciano Laurana.

Other Early Renaissance masterpieces to be seen in the Marche include The Coronation of the Virgin (known as the Pesaro Altarpiece) by Giovanni Bellini.

Useful links:

Ducal Palace - Urbino

Sassocorvaro Castle

Duke's fortress at San Leo

Palazzo della Signoria in Jesi

Piazza del Popolo in Ascoli Piceno