Federico da Montefeltro
condottiere of the Italian Renaissance, and lord of Urbino
Federico da Montefeltro, also known as Federico III da Montefeltro (7 June 1422 – 10 September 1482), was one of the most successful mercenary captains (condottieri) of the Italian Renaissance. He became the lord of Urbino in 1444, and ruled the city as its duke from 1474 until his death. In addition to his considerable reputation for martial skill and honor, he was a renowned intellectual humanist and civic leader. Montefeltro commissioned the construction of a great library, perhaps the largest of Italy after the Vatican's, complete with a team of scribes in its scriptorium. He also assembled a large humanistic court in his Ducal Palace, designed by Luciano Laurana and Francesco di Giorgio Martini.
Biography
Federico was born in Castello di Petroia in Gubbio. Guidantonio da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino, Gubbio and Casteldurante, and Duke of Spoleto acknowledged Federico as his illegitimate son. Two years later he was legitimized by Pope Martin V, with the consent of Guidantonio's wife, Caterina Colonna, who was Martin's niece. However, there were persistent rumours that Federico was not Guidantonio's son, but his grandson. Guidantonio had an illegitimate daughter named Aura, who, in 1420, married Bernardino Ubaldini della Carda, a captain in Guidantonio's employ.
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This entry incorporates text from “Federico da Montefeltro” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.