Architecture and Memory

Architecture and Memory Robert Kirkbride
Preamble
It is possible to navigate this work in at least two ways. On one hand, there is the undertow of 1
a plot line that proceeds from the introduction (1) and a comparison of the studioli contents
and their experiential characteristics (2), through an overview of the relation between thinking
and making in late quattrocento Italy (3), and its influence on the humanist education of a
prince such as Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, as evidenced in the Gubbio studiolo (4 and 5).
Chapter (6) explores the Urbino studiolo and its role in an average day in the life of Duke
Federico da Montefeltro and is followed by (7) a few concluding thoughts.
It is not necessary, however, to read these sections in numerical sequence: each is somewhat 2
autonomous. In fact, a nonlinear reading would be in keeping with the transdisciplinary
intellectual habits of the studioli patrons and artists, complementing the polysemic nature of
the studioli compositions. If you prefer to begin with a sense of how the studioli fit into an
average day in the Montefeltro court, then I recommend beginning with chapter 6. Or, if you
prefer to equip yourself with a contextual synopsis of late quattrocento views of thought- and
material craft, go to chapter 3. If your interests center on pedagogical traditions, begin with
chapter 4. You might also use the IAQ (Infrequently Asked Questions) to navigate: they are
linked to a sequence of extended captions that cross-reference the main text at critical
intervals.
Whichever path is chosen, readers are encouraged to dither across sections via text, notes, 3
extended captions, images, indexes, and galleries: these various devices extend ancient
practices for forming associational links that are embedded in the walls of the studioli. At the
time of their construction, the studioli embodied the leading edge in technologies of visual
representation, through the arts of intarsia (wood inlay) and perspective. Translation of this
research into the digital environment, with assistance from the Gutenberg-e Prize and
Columbia University Press, is a natural extension of its historical subject, offering an
opportunity to explore how contemporary interactive technologies reactivate and transform
ancient metaphors for thought and learning.
The Navigational Icon
The navigational icon for this e-publication is a 4

Navigational icon
geometric figure found on the inside of a (true) cabinet
door in the Urbino studiolo. It is seven-sided, a heptagon, composed of an infinitely recursive
single line. Its form traces a fondness for the number 7 that was culturally shared (seven vices
and virtues, seven liberal arts, and so on) and also specific to the studioli and the Urbino
court. The selection of a seven-pointed figure for its highly charged location was not taken
2008 Columbia University Press www.gutenberg-e.org/kirkbride 1 of 3

Architecture and Memory Preamble Robert Kirkbride
lightly. Included in this research are speculations about this heptagonal figure and why it
might have proved a natural choice as ornament for the Urbino studiolo. For these reasons, it
is an ideal icon for organizing and navigating the research. This interactive icon is located
directly above the Search button.
Please note: Due to differences among computer processors, software generations, and 5
internet buffering, it is recommended that readers replay animations and videos for an
unimpeded screening, once they have been downloaded.
Navigational Outline
Cover and Preamble
1. Introduction
2. The Urbino and Gubbio Studioli: Their Contents, Compositions, and Experiential
Character
2.1 The Urbino Studiolo
2.2 The Gubbio Studiolo
2.3 A Phenomenological Reading of the Studioli
3. Material and Mental Craft in Quattrocento Italy: Several Hypotheses Concerning the
Studioli
4. Memory and Quattrocento Learning: The Gubbio Studiolo as a Florilegium for Prince
Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
4.1 The Humanist Education of a Late Quattrocento Prince
4.2 On Right Habits
4.3 On Architecture and Memory
4.4 Aedificatio: Architecture as a Metaphor for Meditation
5. Adumbration: Cosm(et)ology and the Gubbio Studiolo
6. The Urbino Studiolo as an Engine for Governance
6.1 The Duke's Private Percorso
6.2 On Action and Contemplation
6.3 The Gallery of the Illustrious (Uomini Illustri)
6.4 The Physicality of Thought: Solitude, Solicitude, and Cogitatio
6.5 The Roman Cubiculum
6.6 FEDE+RICO and the Faithlessness of Princes
6.7 The Influence of Politics on Patronage
6.8 Temperance and the Golden Mean
6.9 On Music and "Right" Leisure
6.10 On Chess

Architecture and Memory Preamble Robert Kirkbride
6.11 On Fortune
7. Conclusion: The Studioli as Architecture
A. Acknowledgments
B. Image, Animation, Video, Slide and Sound Galleries
C. Infrequently Asked Questions
D. Extended Captions
E. Encomia for Gallery of Illustrious Men in Urbino studiolo
F. Bibliography
G. About the Author

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
The eye follows the paths that have been laid down for it in the work.
Paul Klee, Pdagogisches Schizzenbchen
The studioli of the ducal palaces at Urbino and Gubbio offer elegant demonstrations of 1
architecture's capacity, as a discipline and medium, to transact between the mental and
physical realms of human experience. Constructed between 1474 and 1483 for the military
captain Federico da Montefeltro, of Urbino, the studioli may be described as treasuries of
emblems, for they contain not things but images of things, rendered with remarkable
perspectival exactitude. Over the past five centuries, these chambers have themselves become
emblems for the intellectual milieu at the court of Urbino, crystallizing a unique brand of
humanism1 that spanned the mathematical and verbal as well as liberal and mechanical arts.
Fig. 1.1. Worm's eye view of the Fig. 1.2. Worm's eye view of the
Urbino studiolo walls and ceiling. Gubbio studiolo.
Owing to their comprehensive iconographic programswhich encompass the seven liberal 2

arts,2 the muses and virtues,3 the heraldic imagery of the Montefeltro, and Duke Federico's
personal accomplishmentsthe studioli might be interpreted as encyclopedic containers of
universal knowledge. Yet careful review of these emblems and their perspectival arrangement
reveals that the studioli might have served more as a rhetorical medium for stimulating
thought than as representations of a "complete" body of knowledge. Considered in light of
recent scholarship in earlier pedagogical traditions, these chambers may be appreciated as
associative engines whose marvelous visual character assists an occupant to forge new
constellations of meaning from a set of carefully selected and arranged figures. As such, the
studioli extend an ancient legacy of open-ended architectonic models, conceived to activate
the imagination and exercise the memory as an inventive agency for knowing.
Architecturally, the Urbino and Gubbio studioli are 3

Fig. 1.3. Map of Italy circa 1480.
capstones to the ambitious building program that
Federico sponsored from the 1460s and that continued for almost a decade after his death.
For the most intense periods of construction, the duke enlisted two architects, first Luciano
Laurana and later Francesco di Giorgio Martini, to redesign the numerous palaces and
fortifications of his expanding dukedom. Completed during di Giorgio's tenureUrbino in
1476 and Gubbio in 1483the studioli reflect an intense collaboration among the many
scholars and artists that Federico and his brother, Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, gathered to their
court.4 Although various artists have alternately been championed as their progenitor, any
definitive attribution for these chambers is highly contestable, if not somewhat beside the

Architecture and Memory Chapter One Robert Kirkbride
point. The studioli offer testament to the syncretic and convivial atmosphere cultivated at
Urbino, as registered and further idealized in the works of Piero della Francesca, Fra Luca
Pacioli, and Baldassare Castiglione.
Scholars have recently positioned the studioli and contemporary rooms of their kind at the 4
origins of the modern museum, as spaces of inquiry and leisure newly emerged between the
private and public realms.5 It is tempting to compare the visual character of the studioli,
regarded in their time as marvelous works,6 with the "cabinets of curiosities" of the 16th and
17th centuries, filled as they were with a new world of things and ontological uncertainties
prompted by Christopher Columbus's westward voyage in 1492. Though not entirely
inaccurate, since the effectiveness of the studioli was predicated on their capacity to induce
wonder, direct comparisons should be tempered. Columbus had not yet set sail. Although the
perspectival composition of the studioli reflects a new organizational status accorded the eye,
foreshadowing the empirical interdependence of witnessing and believing,7 it was not yet the
world of Giulio Camillo, famed for his memory theater, who exclaims, in The Art of Memory
(1560), "Let's turn scholars into spectators."8
In the studioli, practices of visualizing knowledge were influenced, but not yet commanded, by 5
the corporeal eye. Knowing was still conceived as the cultivation of wisdom in the mind's eye,
nourished by a well-trained memory. Icons and emblems were believed to convey one's
thoughts directly between the inner seat of emotional witness and the outward aspirations of
community, with the architecture of memory facilitating intercourse between thought and
matter.
Nonetheless, the studioli do represent a significant turning point in the role of sight in 6
verifying experience. In particular, the chambers manifest a transformation in practices of
envisioning knowledge, from an inward habit of mnemonic composition toward a more
extroverted mediation of the world as a theater for the corporeal eye and its prosthetic
instruments. By their visual arrangement, the studioli demonstrate the emergence of a
quantitative methodology for representing reality, a scientia mechanica centered on the belief
that humans might participate directly in the workings of the universe. "Heavenly things are
present in the hidden life of the world," writes Marsilio Ficino, "and in the mind, the queen of
the world, where they are its vital and intellectual property, its excellence."9 With increasing
breadth, the principles of perspective offered a proportional harness for the field of
experience, offering consonanceor, in Leon Battista Alberti's terms, a concinnitasbetween
the music of the spheres and the realm of human affairs.10
In the studioli this transformation in visuality may be 7

Fig. 1.4. Astrolabe and armillary
characterized as a polithetic overlap rather than an sphere, Urbino studiolo.
abrupt departure.11 Mechanical practices such as
perspective recalibrated rather than replaced earlier rhetorical traditions. Drawing extensively
from the writings of Cicero, Pliny, Quintilian, and Virgil, Alberti's treatise on the subjectin
1435 the first of its kindis not circumscribed by the mathematical demonstrations of Euclid

or Ptolemy. In De pictura, Alberti is as concerned with what should be depicted in a work, its
subject or historia, as with its instrumental execution. It has been noted, in fact, that Alberti's
treatise served his contemporaries more as a discursive explanation of perspective than as a
practical manual.12 Most quattrocento perspectives, including such architectonic, in-the-
round compositions as Andrea Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi at Mantova, the Sala dei Mesi
at Ferrara, and the Montefeltro studioli, did not follow Alberti's prescriptions literally but
were assembled according to methods conceived in the artisan's workshop by the "coarse
wisdom" of "grassa Minerva."13
From a post-daguerreotype point of view, one might 8

Fig. 1.5. The theological virtue of
Faith, Urbino studiolo. presume that the appearance of the studioli underscored
a desire for "realistic" imitation in representation.
Compositional discontinuities in the studioli would be dismissed, under such a premise, as
small bumps in the road toward a seamless verisimilitude. For the quattrocento mind,
however, space was more heterogeneously conceived, with thought emerging precisely from
within its discontinuities. Alberti's recommendation that painters imitate directly from nature
also urges them to "leave more for the mind to discover than is actually apparent to the
eye."14
The influence of artistic works and mechanical processes on habits of late quattrocento 9
thoughtfrom the jigsaw puzzle assembly of intarsia panels to the comprehensive planning of
palaces and citiesis complex and subtle. Even those instruments that "magically" reflected
or amplified the appearance of the world, including such technical innovations as the mirrors
and lenses found in each studiolo, expanded on well-established metaphors for thought and
memory. When considering these items from hindsight, we must not forget that they were
used to different (or further) ends than we might expect.15 Along with emblems, paintings,
poems, and architectural ornament, they provided the materials of thought. The gravitating
concern in the studioli was not optical realism but intellectual stimulation and ethical
preparation in a turbulent, often violent culture.
Federico and his colleagues embraced the mathematical arts with a passion imbued with a 10
deep appreciation of the spoken and written word.16 If Alberti's velo (veil) of intersected lines
supplied the artisan and observer with a new proportional harness for visualizing experience,
the architectonics of memory sustained accord between the senses and intellect through
mathematical, literary, and visual figures. Quintessentially, the studioli are "visual
panegyrics,"17 akin to and yet distinctly removed from historical precedents and antecedents.
This investigation is structured in seven parts. In chapter 2, I describe the studioli, comparing 11
their contents, compositions, and experiential (or phenomenological) character. In chapter 3,
I propose hypotheses from these comparisons and outline methods of inquiry. In addition to
the studioli, my investigation draws from the earliest surviving index of the ducal library, the

Indice Vecchio (abbreviated as "I.V."), a document that offers a bibliographical sketch of

intellectual commerce at Urbino during the studioli construction. Specific works in this index
are referenced, as are relevant works by Federico's colleagues, including Alberti, Ficino,
Nicholas of Cusa, and Bartolomeo Platina.
What did the quattrocento think about thinking? How were its processes bound to 12
architecture, and vice-versa? This question occupies chapter 4, in which I examine the
interdependence of architecture and memory in the education of a quattrocento prince.
Emphasis here is placed on the imagery in the Gubbio studiolo, which reflects an educational
agenda and registers the transition of governance from Federico, who died during its
construction, to his ten-year-old son, Guidobaldo. Although both studioli embody a common
pedagogical foundation, the architecture of the Gubbio studiolo provided an ideal settinga
florilegium18 for cultivating the "right" habits of thought recommended in humanist
learning. Distilling this point further, chapter 5 is a short stopover that considers the colors
and ornament of the ceiling at Gubbio with regard to contemporary astrobiological theories.
How would Federico have conducted a guest through the Urbino studiolo? Had he cultivated a 13
repertoire, an idealized narrative, propagandistically conceived? Or would the duke have
tailored a unique itinerary to each visitor, according to his perception of the other's vested
interests, or a subtle or stern message he wished to convey? To what extent were Federico's
narratives extemporized? Would he have indulged a guest to muse aloud, to ask questions to
which he could then knowledgeably respond? Would he have revealed the literal and literary
associations of specific images so that a visitor might better appreciate the intellectual
allusions? Would he have permittedpossibly even encouragedhis astonished guests to
touch the intarsia? Did the duke stoop to think, himself?
Chapter 6 offers a close reading of the Urbino studiolo as an engine for Federico's governance. 14
The composition, imagery, and contemporary accounts of the studiolo provide clues to its
central role(s) in the duke's daily life and, more generally, reflect the complex interplay of
intellectual, material, and political craft in late quattrocento Italy. We see how the Urbino
studiolo provided a recombinatorium for thought and how the presence of the duke and his
guests within would have provided its motivating force.
Where fate proved to be capricious to the Montefeltrothe paternal lineage ended with 15
Federico's son, Guidobaldohistory has been kinder, largely due to the quality of art and
literature produced by members of their court and sympathetic biographies composed by
contemporaries and historians. Some might argue, in fact, that history has perhaps been too
kind to Federico, turning a blind eye to episodes that do not quite fit with his spotless
reputation for honor and faithfulness. For example, the recent discovery of a coded letter that
implicates him in the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478 suggests that the duke may have consciously
sought to undermine the fragile union of the Italic peninsula that he was paid to uphold. More
surprising than Federico's involvement, however, is the assumption of a one-to-one
correspondence between man and myth, particularly given the context. Machiavelli's

recommendation that a prince "not deviate from what is good, if possible, but be able to do
evil if constrained" is a sober reflection on the political milieu of the late quattrocento, which
was certainly not juste in spite of its idealized trappings.19
To what extent were the studioli and other works of the duke's "art" mere products of 16
humanist propaganda? Midpoint between dismissive and dumbstruck is the objective mindset
to appreciate how pragmatic idealism shaped Federico's leadership and patronage. If
Federico gained a reputation for faithfulness, it may have been not as the result of an unerring
rsum but rather by comparison to contemporaries. Cast in a certain light, the iconographic
presence of the virtues (including Faith) in the Urbino studiolo may appear overtly self-
promotional and self-aggrandizing; considered within an oral culture steeped in mnemonic
traditions, such images were also reminders that one's fate is determined in large part by the
whims of human pettiness, fragility, and circumstances beyond one's control. Architecture
and its ornament were the food and furniture for thought, not its superficial husk, and the
uses of a work took place whether one stood in its presence or far afield. One must therefore
scrutinize the context from which humanist panegyrics such as the studioli emerged, sorting
through the honorifics and inflated rhetoric to weigh the violent circumstances that gave rise
to them, as well as to tease out other views hidden between the lines.
For a rounder appreciation of prudence (and cleverness) in the quattrocento mind, an 17

encomium such as offered by Vespasiano da Bisticci"all those to whom [Federico] gave his
word bear witness that he never broke it . . . whether under obligation or free"20 must be
balanced with such candid assessments as Machiavelli's "In What Way Princes Must Keep
Faith": "One could furnish an infinite number of examples, and show how many times peace
has been broken, and how many promises rendered worthless, by the faithlessness of princes,
and those that have been best able to imitate the fox have succeeded best."21 From historical
evidence it is clear that Federico inclined naturally to the shrewd action and policy of the fox.
The secretive encoding of the duke's role in the Pazzi conspiracy points to the "practical" side 18
of rhetorical and mnemonic training and reveals that alphanumeric recombination was an
engine for tactical application as well as a source of meditation and divine speculation. Coded
messages were integral to late quattrocento military and political strategy, and if they weren't
the bread and butter of courtly entertainment, they certainly provided its spice: as Baldassare
Castiglione notes at the outset of The Book of the Courtier, "under various disguises
[including a 'game of emblems'] the company disclosed their thoughts figuratively to whom
they liked best."22 Perhaps it is a surprise only to us, looking back across half a millennium
through eyes that seek decisive meanings, attributions, and judgments, that an environment
as pedagogically and ethically charged as the studioli would be so open to interpretation. This
"openness" was and is the power and allure of the studioli.
Although the original meanings and uses of the studioli will never be entirely transparent, 19
their architecture enables us to appreciate the concerns of our Renaissance predecessors, just
as the studioli had equipped Federico and his cohorts to approximate the ideals of their

ancestors. This study does not presume to exhaust the studioli of their significance, an
impossible folly: my objective is to investigate a particular seam in the studioli that has
escaped notice.23 By examining their physical architecture, we can learn much about late
quattrocento practices in architectural mnemonics. In turn, better understanding of the
workings and uses of the memory reveals significances of architecture during this period that
have not been fully considered. It is my hope that this research contributes to a deeper
appreciation of the mnemonic exponent of chambers such as the studioli and, more generally,
that it underscores the remarkable suppleness of architecture as a discipline and expression of
thought.

Notes
Note 1: "By humanism we mean merely the general tendency of the age to attach the greatest
importance to classical studies, and to consider classical antiquity as the common standard and
model by which to guide all cultural activities." Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, 88.
Note 2: The seven liberal arts consisted of the mathematical arts (the quadrivium: arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, and music) and the verbal arts (the trivium: grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric).
Note 3: The Christian virtues include the four cardinal virtuesjustice, prudence, fortitude, and
temperanceadopted from the Old Testament (Book of Wisdom 8:78) and classical pedagogy
(Cicero's De inventione). At times Magnanimity was adjunct to Temperance. The theological virtues
are faith, hope, and charity.
Note 4: There is five hundred years of speculation about Federico's true parents and his relationship
to Ottaviano, whom he called "fratello." More recently, according to Olga Raggio, Federico and
Ottaviano (b. 1424) were both born of Count Guidantonio da Montefeltro's daughter, Aura, and the
count's distinguished military captain, Bernardino degli Ubaldini (Gubbio Studiolo, 16). Federico was
thus grandson to Count Guidantonio. Upon Federico's death on 10 September 1482, Ottaviano, a
noted scholar and astronomer, was appointed regent for the duchy, where he supervised the
completion of various architectural projects. The services of Francesco di Giorgio were retained until
1487. See Gubbio Studiolo, 72.
Note 5: Findlen, Possessing Nature, 11213; Thornton, Scholar in His Study, 12023.
Note 6: "One of his [Federico's] cabinets was adorned in a fashion so wonderful that no one could
say whether it was done with a brush, or in silver, or in relief." Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian
Memoirs, 101.
Note 7: As championed by Andrea Vesalius and Sir Francis Bacon. For a discussion of the "virtual
witnessing" practiced by members of the Royal Society (expanding upon the principles of Bacon), see
Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 33839: "Although Boyle originated the technology of
virtual witnessing, as a literary form it came to characterize the style of the Royal Society as a whole.
The technology of virtual witnessing involved 'the production in a reader's mind of such an image of
an experimental scene as obviates the necessity for either its direct witness or its replication.' The
'prolixity' of descriptions of experiments and the detailed, naturalistic illustrations that went into the
society's publications aimed to create the impression of verisimilitude. They were designed to convey
not just the idea of an experiment but 'a vivid impression of the experimental scene.' . . . reporting
their experiments the society shunned ornamental language and strove to 'represent Truth, cloth'd
with Bodies, and to bring Knowledg back again to our very sense, from whence it was first deriv'd to
our understandings.'"
Note 8: Camillo, Opere, 6667.
Note 9: Ficino, Book of Life, 3.15.135.
Note 10: For a discussion of concinnitas, see Alberti, Art of Building, 9.5.305, as well as Joseph
Rykwert's gloss on the subject (42122). For a discussion of the transition from perspectiva naturalis
(medieval optics) toward perspectiva artificialis, see Prez-Gmez and Pelletier, Architectural
Representation and the Perspective Hinge, 1629.
Note 11: I do not mean to imply a categorical history of visuality but rather, as Michel Foucault and
Jonathan Crary have discussed, a genealogy of practices that may be retraced (Crary, Techniques of
the Observer, 6). This view of history has been described by Barbara Duden as politheticconsisting
of discontinuous yet overlapping strands, like a hemp rope (Disembodying Women, 90).
Note 12: Elkins, Poetics of Perspective, 8489.
Note 13: In the first passage of De pictura, Alberti borrows a Ciceronian proverb (from De amicitia
5.16) concerning the "coarse senses of Minerva" to distinguish the sensate knowledge of a painter
from a mathematician's abstract mensurations (see Kemp, "Introduction," 12). In De architectura

(1.1.1), Vitruvius refers to the craftsman's clever wisdom as sollertiae. This term is found in the
Prohemium of Piero della Francesca's treatise on the five "platonic" solids, De quinque corporibus
regularibus, dedicated to Prince Guidobaldo: "qui non minori artis studio/ingenio/solertia/&
industria fuerunt." A modern-day example of sollerzia is offered by the scuretto (little darkness), a
small gap in an architectural joint that allows for the visual play of light and shadowand the
physical play of expansion and contractionbetween different materials. Antoine Wilmering provides
an exacting analysis of artisanal variations between the studioli (Gubbio Studiolo, vol. 2). Innovative
subtleties in intarsia work appear to have increased in direct proportion to trade competition.
Whether these embellishments were cultivated with the assistance of mirrors, as David Hockney has
suggested (Secret Knowledge), is a speculative matter.
Note 14: Alberti, On Painting, trans. Grayson, 2.42.77.
Note 15: Dora Thornton has analyzed the practical uses for mirrors and lenses in the Renaissance
study (Scholar in His Study, 14142, 16774) and, along with Luciano Cheles and others, has pointed
out their iconographic correlation to prudence as a virtue of self-reflection. There are further
associations.
Note 16: Christine Smith has investigated the sources and architectonic influences of rhetoric on
humanism in Architecture in the Culture of Early Humanism. This dissertation builds on her
question: "How did the Humanists use what they saw around them [architecture and its ornament] to
understand what they could not see, like the nature of the soul, their position in history, and their
relation to the Classical past?" (xii).
Note 17: In a fall 2000 lecture at New York University, Lina Bolzoni used this phrase in discussing
the tradition of ut pictura poesis. The historical interdependence of linguistic and visual figures,
articulated in Horace's Art of Poetry, thrives in Alberti's definition of istoria in De pictura and in
Castiglione's self-deprecating description of the Book of the Courtier as a "picture" by a "humble
painter" (from the dedicatory letter to Lord Dom Miguel de Silva, bishop of Viseu). For more on this
subject, see Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis.
Note 18: "A florilegium is basically the contents of someone's memory, set forth as a kind of study-
guide for the formation of others' memories. . . . The most familiar variety brings together topics,
vices and virtues and socially useful habits, such as those for study or for civic behavior." Carruthers,
Book of Memory, 174.
Note 19: Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 18.
Note 20: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 8586.
Note 22: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 12.
Note 23: It is reasonable to question what one could possibly hope to discover from a topic so
thoroughly investigated as the studioli. There is always something worthwhile, it seems. Pasquale
Rotondi has provided a fundamental account of the architectural construction of the ducal palace at
Urbino. Olga Raggio and Antoine Wilmering's publication on the Gubbio studiolo provides a valuable
history of its palace and the quattrocento practice(s) of intarsia. The Metropolitan Museum's survey
also includes Martin Kemp's account of perspectival methods used in the Gubbio studiolo, which
should be considered alongside James Elkins's research on the heterogeneous nature of quattrocento
perspectives. Numerous scholars, most recently Lorne Campbell, Cecil H. Clough, and Marcin
Fabianski, Pier Luigi Bagatin, Luciano Cheles, and Virginia Grace Tenzer, have provided a wealth of
iconographical data about the imagery and architectural ornament in the studioli and throughout the
ducal palaces. Cheles has also included thorough commentary on the organization and character of
the portraiture in each studiolo. Maria Grazia Pernis has provided significant background material on
the influence of Ficino and Neoplatonism on the court of Urbino and on the professional and
aesthetic competition between Federico and Sigismondo Malatesta. Pernis has also offered

provocative speculations on literary narratives underlying spatial sequences in the Urbino palace. I
am grateful to Martin Kemp for sharing his thoughts on these many views during continued research
at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

CHAPTER TWO
The Urbino and Gubbio Studioli: Their Contents,

Compositions, and Experiential Character
This ark is like to an apothecary's shop, filled with a variety of all delights. You
will seek nothing in it which you will not find, and when you find one thing, you
will see many more disclosed to you. . . . Here the narrative of historical events is
woven together, here the mysteries of the sacraments are found, here are laid
out the successive stages of responses, judgments, meditations, contemplations,
of good works, virtues, and rewards.
Hugh of St. Victor, "De arca Noe morali," 4.9.680B
Urbino Studiolo Gubbio Studiolo
At first glance, the Urbino and Gubbio studioli appear 1

Studioli Slideshow
quite similar. Though relatively small in footprint14.8
and 13 square meters, respectivelyboth are tall spaces, fitted with decorated coffered ceilings
set five meters above a terra-cotta tiled floor.1 This configuration provides large wall surfaces
at intimate proximity, an ideal arrangement for a bold composition that invites closer
inspection of its subtle and exacting craftsmanship. Each studiolo displayed a thematic cycle
of oil paintings on the upper portion of its walls. At Urbino, portraits of 28 uomini illustri
(illustrious men) represent Federico's intellectual and spiritual autobiography,2 whereas at
Gubbio an allegorical ensemble dedicated to the liberal arts underscores an educational
program. Both cycles were commenced by the Flemish master Justus van Ghent 3 and
completed by Pedro Berreguete of Spain. Though thematically common for their time, the
particular subjects and arrangement of these paintings offer insight into Federico's character
and valuable clues concerning the uses of the chambers.
The lower portion of each studiolo is paneled with illusionistic intarsia, ostensibly elaborating 2
on Alberti's advice concerning the insulation of stone walls: "If you panel your walls with
timber, and especially fir or even poplar, it will make the place healthier, warm enough in
winter, and not too hot in summer."4 In weather as damp and chilling as Urbino's winter and
as swelteringly hot as its summer, wood paneling would have been a welcome amenity for a
room devoted to contemplation and intimate conviviality. This is no small detail: Dora
Thornton notes that "heating was always a problem in studies."5
Fig. 2.1. Battista Sforza and

With remarkable veracity, the intarsia in each studiolo 3
Federico da Montefeltro. depicts a series of low benches and book presses6 fitted
Extended Caption 1 with latticework doors (some closed, some ajar)
containing select books, scientific and musical
instruments, armor and weaponry, and family crests of the Montefeltro and the numerous
honors bestowed on Federico during his military and political career. Today, visitors to the

Architecture and Memory Chapter Two Robert Kirkbride
studioli may experience the "privileged" vantage that an otherwise tragic mishap had afforded
the duke. In 1451, Federico's right eye was destroyed during a festival joust, an event he
interpreted as divine retribution for youthful misdeeds. Although dismayed at his damaged
sight, Federico's monocular vision would actually have enhanced the clarity of the intarsiated
trompe l'oeil, an effect that a modern observer may appreciate by exploring either studiolo
with one eye closed.
2.1 The Urbino Studiolo: A Visitor's Perspective
Urbino Day Fig. 2.2. The city of Urbino and the

ducal palace.
The integration of public and private in the organization of the Urbino palace reveals as much 4
about Federico's unique approach to governance as his interests in history and innovative
architecture. Instead of building his palace as a hermetic fortress, as did many of his
contemporaries, Federico and his architects conceived, in Castiglione's words, a palace
"furnished . . . with everything suitable that it seemed not a palace but a city in the form of a
palace."7 The convergence of the civic and domestic realms depicted by this statement is not
exaggerated: with the exception of the private apartments and the duchess's wing, to which
only Federico and Ottaviano held the keys,8 Urbino's citizens enjoyed access to the ducal
palace that was uncommon for its time. This degree of openness likely reflected the pact
between Federico and his subjects, formed as a consequence of the demise of his younger
(legitimate) brother, Oddantonio, who after less than one year of imprudent rule was
assassinated in his bedchamber by a group of citizens, who reputedly cut off the duke's penis
and stuffed it into his mouth.9
Fig. 2.3. Axonometric detail of the Fig. 2.4. View from loggia outside
Urbino ducal palace. studiolo.
Like a valve, the studiolo was positioned between the public and private zones of the palace 5
more precisely, between the duke's bedchambers and the Sala d'Udienze, or council chamber.
The studiolo also occupied a liminal perch between the palace/city and the dukedom, offering
egress to an exterior loggia that provides a generous view of the lands surrounding Urbino.
Although little information is available from contemporary sources concerning uses of the
Gubbio studiolo, permanently installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, we
are fortunate to have inherited valuable, if slender, accounts of the Urbino studiolo and clues
about its role in Federico's daily activities.
Besides the [ducal] library there is a small chamber, designated the studio[lo], in
the prince's apartment, around which are wooden benches with their legs and a

table in the middle; all made of the most diligent craftsmanship in intarsia and
intaglio. From the intarsiawhich covers the wall from the floor to the height of
a man or a little moreup to the ceiling, the walls are subdivided by a number
of paintings [28]. Each painting portrays a famous ancient or modern writer, and
includes a brief note of praise [an encomium] summarising their life.10
Although historically useful, this description by the late-sixteenth-century biographer

Bernardino Baldi scarcely conveys the character of the Urbino studiolo, from the visual
warmth of its materials to the energizing profusion of its images. Entering the studiolo by its
"public" southwest door, which connects to the Sala d'Udienza, visitors inevitably first
wonder, "Where to begin?" Every surfaceand every surface-within-a-surfaceis adorned
with exquisite craftsmanship.
In addition to its terra-cotta tiled floor and gilt ceiling, the studiolo is composed of two 6
distinct zones: the polychromatic portraits of twenty-eight uomini illustri and the honey-toned
intarsia paneling below. In turn, the portraits are arranged in two tiers of 14, and the intarsia
is divided into three levels, with architectural niches and cabinets (two shelves each), benches
set on a low platform, and the dado between.
Fig. 2.5. View of ceiling and gallery

of 28 illustrious men, Urbino
studiolo.
Immediately below the ceiling, whose coffers house Federico's initials and devices, a 7
dedicatory text encircles the room in a band of blue with gold lettering:
FEDERICVS . MONFELTRIVS . DVX . VURBINI . MONTISFERETRI . AC .

DVRANTIS . COMES . SERENISSMI . REGIS . SICILIE . CAPITANEVS .
GENERALIS . SANCTEQVE . ROMANE . ECCLESIE . CONFALONERIVS .
MCCCCLXXVI .
[Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, Count of San Leo and Durante,

Captain General of the Very Serene King of Sicily, and Gonfalonier of the Holy
Roman Church. 1476]
Fig. 2.6. Illustrious men at north Fig. 2.7. Illustrious men at east wall
wall of Urbino studiolo. of Urbino studiolo.
North Wall Encomia East Wall Encomia
Fig. 2.8. Illustrious men at south Fig. 2.9. Illustrious men at west
wall of Urbino studiolo. wall of Urbino studiolo.
South Wall Encomia West Wall Encomia

Beginning in the northwest corner, directly opposite the threshold to the adjacent Sala 8
d'Udienza, this text gives us a straightforward point of orientation, a place to "catch hold"
amid the overwhelming abundance of images. Following the path of text around the chamber,
we are drawn ineluctably toward the room's center. Completing a full rotation at the
dedicatory date,11 our gaze might naturally descend to the colorful portraits below, each
featuring an illustrious scholar seated in an architectural setting. Federico's guests, even if
they could not discern the names and encomia (prominently) inscribed on the portraits,
would have recognized most of the uomini illustri through quattrocento artistic conventions
used for each subject's clothing, accessories, and gestures. A cursory overview of the group
points up the broad representation of intellectual disciplines and a striking balance of
Christian and non-Christian heroes, organized (for the most part) by the lower and upper
tiers.12
Having completed one (or perhaps two) further 9

Fig. 2.10. Directly beneath
"FEDERICVS" we find Plato and rotation(s) in consideration of the portraits and their
Aristotle placed side-by-side. commentaries, our gaze returns to the north wall
intarsia, where it alights on further text. A bit of paper,
nailed to the facing of a shelf like a reminder, bears the phrase "virtutibus itur ad astra."
Elsewhere in the same wall, emblazoned on books, are the names of Virgil, Homer, Cicero
(TVLIO), Seneca, and Duns Scotus, whose portraits are included among the uomini illustri.
Alongside is a Bible, perhaps the one in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin that Federico acquired in
1472 during the spoliation of Volterra.
Fig. 2.11. Cabinet, north wall. Fig. 2.12. Cabinet, north wall.
Fig. 2.13. Candied fruit on bench, Fig. 2.14. Lit candle, north wall.
north wall.
From the general appearance of the intarsia, with its opened cabinet doors, upturned seats, 10
and the array of items disposed on its benches, we might imagine that we have entered the
studiolo while it was in use. It is as if Federico has just stepped out and will be returning
shortly. We might, in fact, envision that the duke had entered the room after a day of military
toil, laid his arms to rest, removed and hung his armor in the northeast alcove, and donned
the robes of a humanist scholar in preparation for contemplative pursuits. Judging from the
two spoons in an opened container of candied fruit, it appears that he has company. Is one of
the spoons meant for us? A candle has been lit long enough for its wax to drip. Notes have
been jotted onto a folded scrap of paper nearby, and the hourglass above will soon need to be
turned over.

It appears that Federico and his guest(s) have been listening to music: two musical scores are 11
opened in separate cabinets, and ten of the 14 instruments in the chamber are laid out, almost
haphazardly, on the benches. A sword and mace lean against two upturned seats (near the
duke's and visitor's entrance, respectively), while in two other locations seats are raised as if to
provide easier access to opened cabinets nearby. For all of the benches surrounding the
chamber, there is little room to "sit."
Fig. 2.15. Twenty-four objects are Fig. 2.16. Astrolabe and armillary
displayed on the benches at sphere, Urbino studiolo.
Urbino.
Our gaze pours over the contents of the cabinets. In addition to the musical instruments and 12
ubiquitous books, various items associated with the liberal arts, muses, and virtues are found
alongside precious and commonplace instruments of science and scholarship. Many of these
images have been encountered elsewhere in the palace, en route to the studiolo. Eleven hooks
in the cabinets support a dagger, a scopetta (whisk broom), Federico's armor (occupying five
hooks), an astrolabe, an armillary sphere, a tablet, and a birdcage. One hook is empty,
suggesting that its normal occupant is in use and might be found elsewhereon the bench,
perhaps? And, in a tour-de-force of subtle craftsmanship, a rectangular glass mirror dangles
by a rope from a pilaster capital near the visitor's entrance, "blocking" the "swing" of an
adjacent cabinet door.
Fig. 2.17. Hope, north wall, Urbino Fig. 2.18. Faith, south wall, Urbino
studiolo. studiolo.
Fig. 2.19. Charity, west wall, Urbino

studiolo.
Four miniaturized human figures inhabit the intarsia, ensconced among the cabinets. 13
Centered in the north, south, and west walls are the three theological virtues, Hope, Faith, and
Charity, respectively; we recognize them from the Door of the Virtues, located elsewhere in
the palace at the entrance to the Appartamento della Iole.13 The settings for Hope and Faith
are semicircular, while Charity occupies a vaulted threshold that appears to lead somewhere
beyond. The fourth figure, diagonally opposite from the visitor's entrance, is Duke Federico,
depicted in humanist robes holding a spear with its point turned downward.

Fig. 2.20. Worm's eye view of the Fig. 2.21. Northeast corner of
Urbino studiolo walls and ceiling, Urbino intarsia, with Federico in
drawn by author and Amelia humanist's robes and his armor at
Amelia. right.
Fig. 2.22. Detail of chain mail, Fig. 2.23. Southeast corner of

Urbino studiolo. Urbino intarsia, with miniature
studiolo at left and an organ at
right.
In addition to the illusionistic niches and cabinets, there are physical recesses in the intarsia 14
at each corner of the studiolo. Two of these are thresholds, leading to the Sala d'Udienza in
the southwest corner and the duke's bedchambers in the northwest. At the east wall, two
other recesses are separated by what further inspection reveals to be an actual book press. To
the left, in a "curtained" alcove adjacent to Federico's half-scale portrait, we find his armor
represented at full-scale, its chain mail glittering. To the right of the book press, we discover a
studiolo in miniature, equipped with its own benches, lectern, books, hourglass, illuminated
lantern, and dedicatory frieze. Adjacent to the studiolo-within-a-studiolo is the third
"curtained" alcove in the chamber, containing a positive organ made by Juhani Castellano,
whose name is inscribed below its keys.
Fig. 2.24. Civic space at the center

of the east wall, Urbino studiolo.
In the central panel of the east wall, we view a city in the distance through the arches of an 15
empty loggia. A squirrel and a basket of fruit sit on the ledge of a window through which the
observer (the occupant of the studiolo) gazes. The squirrel busies itself with a nut, and the
basket offers the observer the ripe bounties harvested from the lands seen beyond the arcade.

Fig. 2.25. There was likely some Fig. 2.26. Heptagonal figure,
debate over a seven- or eight-sided Urbino studiolo.
figure for the cabinet door.
Fig. 2.27. Unicursal octagonal Fig. 2.28. Heptagonal floral pattern

figure drawn by Amelia Amelia on upturned "bench."
after Fra Carnivale.
Fig. 2.29. Operable intarsia panels

folded open, Urbino studiolo.
Exploring further, we discover shelves at either side of the book press: nearest the armor, they 16
are shallow and openly accessible, whereas those on the miniature studiolo side, concealed by
a door, are deeper and more spacious. The inside of the cabinet door is inlaid with a
heptagonal figure drawn from a single, infinitely recursive line. This sevenfold figure is
unusual: although arabesque in its tracery, most Islamic geometries are based on a fourfold
order of interlocking squares and octagons or a threefold order of triangles and hexagons.
Nearby, a seven-lobed thistle- or artichoke-like flower is found in the brocade decoration of an
intarsiated bench cushion, a pattern also found in the green textile covering the steps in the
Liberal Arts oil portraits at Gubbio.14 Together with a panel beneath the miniature studiolo,
this portion of the intarsia actually flips down to form a bench and lectern configurationthe
"table in the middle" of Baldi's description?
Like the coffers overhead, the dado presents Federico's initials and the devices of the 17
Montefeltro found throughout the palace. Two of these emblems, the scopetta and the
exploding grenade,15 also adorn pilaster capitals in the north wall while a third, a horse's
bridle, does not appear elsewhere in the Urbino studiolo. It will be seen in the dado at Gubbio.
Fig. 2.30. Devices in the dado at Fig. 2.31. Exploding grenade, north
Urbino and Gubbio include an wall, Urbino studiolo.
ostrich, an ermine, olive and oak
trees, and a crane.
Fig. 2.32. Bridle, north wall, Urbino

studiolo.

Several further cabinets are shown at the east wall, below seat-level. In addition to the actual 18
shelves at either side of the book press, a few books are visible below the squirrel and fruit
basket, and a few tapersone ignitedare found beneath the miniature studiolo. Examining
the bench legs more closely, we notice wheels that are fashioned for movement: they are fitted
with hubs, as if for axles. Shadows cast by the bench legs lead us to wonder at their source.
Above the intarsia of the west wall, a large window 19

Fig. 2.33. Bench wheels, Urbino
studiolo. admits late afternoon sunlight, at which time the room
becomes golden ocher. The canted sides of the window
permit enough light to illuminate the interior but not so much that it becomes overheated. In
addition to the illusionistic depth provided by the intarsia and paintings, which prevent the
chamber from feeling too "close," the arrangement of multiple doors provides ample
ventilation, consistent with Alberti's suggestion that a room be prepared for summer
conditions, since it is more difficult to cool than to heat a space. In fact, the ruffled pages of an
opened book lead a curious observer to discover the third door of the studiolo, concealed
behind the figure of Charity.
Fig. 2.34. View from loggia outside Fig. 2.35. Detail of distant city, east
studiolo. wall, Urbino studiolo.
We step out onto the loggia. The vista vaguely recalls the background landscape in the central 20
panel of the east wall, but is the depicted city Urbino?16 And if not, which city might it be?
2.2 The Gubbio Studiolo
Although secondary in political importance to Urbino, 21

Fig. 2.36. View of Gubbio ducal
palace. Gubbio was the birthplace of Federico and his son,
Guidobaldo, and therefore highly significant to the
Montefeltro for reasons of dynastic continuity. Moreover, following Battista Sforza's marriage
to Federico in 1460, Gubbio became the duchess's favorite place of residence. It is possible
then, as Luciano Cheles has suggested,17 that the renovation of the palace by Francesco di
Giorgio served to commemorate the duchess as well as to celebrate the birthplace of the duke
and his heir.

Fig. 2.37. Plan of Gubbio ducal Fig. 2.38. Worm's eye view of the
palace, with studiolo noted as Gubbio studiolo, drawn by author
Room 1. and Amelia Amelia.
Gubbio Studiolo Studioli Slideshow
Although the studioli are in many ways akin, there are subtle differences. Unlike the Urbino 22
studiolo, a between space par excellence, the Gubbio studiolo is a more private cul-de-sac,
situated at one end of a long gallery (Room #1 in fig. 2.37) that may have been used as a
library and audience chamber.18 From this arrangement, it is likely that the studiolo served in
both an official and leisurely capacity, as at Urbino. At Gubbio, however, there is a single
entrance for the duke and his visitors and only one recess in the chamber, a window niche in
the southeast wall. Also, the intarsia of the Gubbio studiolo is fixed entirely. There are no
hidden cabinets or bookshelves, no concealed doors or panels that fold out into "furniture."
Because there are no contemporary accounts like those offered by Vespasiano about the
Urbino "closet,"19 it is more challenging to discern precise uses of the Gubbio studiolo.
Nonetheless, several clues point to underlying significances.
Fig. 2.39. View of Gubbio studiolo Fig. 2.40. Northwest wall, Gubbio
from entrance. studiolo.
Fig. 2.41. Northeast wall, Gubbio Fig. 2.42. Southeast wall, Gubbio
studiolo. studiolo.
Fig. 2.43. Southwest wall, Gubbio

studiolo.
The most apparent differences between the studioli are captured in their Latin inscriptions 23
and paintings. As compared with Urbino's text, which is located near the ceiling, the
inscription at Gubbio encircles the room mid-wall in a band of blue and gold over the intarsia.
Where Urbino's text offers a dedicatory introduction to Duke Federico, the Latin inscription at
Gubbio is a distich dedicated to the liberal arts, composed by court scholar Federico
Veterani.20 It proceeds:
ASPICIS.ETERNOS.VENERANDE.MATRIS.ALUMNOS.
DOCTRINA.EXCELSOS.INGENIOQ.VIROS.
UT.NUDA.CERVICE.CADANT.ANTE.[ORA.PARENTIS.
SUPPLIC]ITER.FLEXO.PROCUBUERE.GENU.

IUSTITIA.PIETAS.VINCIT.REVERENDA.NEC.ULLUM.
POENITET.ALTRICI.SUCCUBUISSES.SUE.
You see how the eternal students of the Venerable Mother

Men exalted in learning and in genius
Fall forward, suppliantly with bared head
And bended knee, before [the face of their parent].
With the help of Justice, reverend Piety prevails
And none regrets having submitted to his foster mother.21
Instead of Urbino's gallery of illustrious men, Gubbio featured a cycle of seven allegorical 24
paintings, each depicting a liberal art as a goddess who offers a manuscript or symbolic object
to a mortal. The arrangement of these portraits is a matter of continued debate,22 since
images of only four of the seven have survived: Ferrante I, king of Naples (as Ptolemy), with
Astronomy, Costanzo Sforza with Music, Federico with Dialectic, and Guidobaldo with
Rhetoric.23 Nonetheless, a significant clue may be deduced from these last two portraits.
Fig. 2.44. Goddess Astronomy with Fig. 2.45. Goddess Music with
Ptolemy/Ferrante I. Costanzo Sforza.
Fig. 2.46. Goddess Dialectic with Fig. 2.47. Goddess Rhetoric with
Federico da Montefeltro. Guidobaldo da Montefeltro.
In Dialectic, Duke Federico is shown genuflecting before the goddess while receiving (or 25
returning) a closed book. Curiously, Federico's gaze is focused not on the goddess Dialectic
but beyond the frame to the adjacent portrait at the center of the northwest wall which depicts
his son receiving an opened book from Rhetoric. The goddess gestures to the verso page while
training her gaze upon us, the observers who would be standing in the center of the chamber.
From this energized position, we can imagine ourselves in the shoes of the young princehis
own image fixed eternally under the duke's watchful gazeraising his own eyes to meet those
of the placidly stern goddess of Rhetoric. The incentive to attend to his studies is palpable.
Fig. 2.48. Lectern and opened

manuscript of Virgil's Aeneid,
Gubbio studiolo.
Another clue is found in the only section of intarsia not immediately visible on entering the 26
chamber, in the window niche. Here we find the image of a lectern, set on the bench, that
displays a legible manuscript of Virgil's Aeneid,24 illusionistically opened to the passage
describing the death of Pallas:
Every man's last day is fixed

Lifetimes are brief and not to be regained,

For all mankind. But by their deeds to make

Their fame last: that is labor for the brave.
Although this passage likely refers to the death of Duke Federico, on 10 September 1482, its
exhortatory tone is akin to the fixing gaze of the goddess Rhetoric. Suspended directly above
the lectern, a circular mirror bears the letters G.BA.LDO.DX, signifying Duke Guidobaldo.
Since Federico's personal insignias are found elsewhere in the chamber, it seems likely that 27
the studiolo was completed following the duke's death, as Raggio and Wilmering have
surmised. We might also take a longer view that the program for the chamber had been
conceived (and adapted) in preparation for the inevitable transference of the dukedom to, as
Castiglione would describe, "a motherless little boy of ten years."25 Regardless of the exact
timing, the educational theme of the studiolo, underscored by the portraits of the Liberal Arts,
would have been most appropriate for a young prince.
Considered in this light, the composure of the Gubbio 28

Fig. 2.49. Mirror with Guidobaldo's
initials. studiolo is slightly more organized than at Urbino: its
contents appear more select and less casually "strewn"
about. Although seats are raised in four locations, as at Urbino, the benches display a third of
the objects. There are also a third of the books and half the number of items found in Urbino's
cabinets.26 Although music remains the dominant discipline, with 13 instruments evenly
dispersed and an opened manuscript in a northwest cabinet,27 only a portative organ is
readily at hand. Because of its size, it appears that the organ might ordinarily be stored
alongside a birdcage (housing only one parrot) that is set in one of the two window-niche
cabinets, which have no shelves. Evocative details suggest that the other cabinet might in
some manner offer storage for the lectern.28 These matching cabinets are visually
distinguished from the others by their surrounding ornament, which consists of numerous
discs threaded together at their center points. Several other objectsincluding a
mazzocchio,29 a sword, a butterfly,30 two bundles of fasces,31 and a bookare widely spaced
around the benches, leaving ample room for the eye to rest.
There are no human figures inlaid at Gubbio. Nor is there the range of illusionistic "depth" 29
found in the Urbino intarsia. Instead, there are 13 cabinets, 12 of whose latticed shutters were
left eternally "open" to reveal their contents. Fifteen objects are suspended from hooks that
are spaced more regularly among the cabinets than at Urbino. All but one are occupied.32
Hanging items including a hunting horn, a pen and ink flask set, the scopetta, the Order of the
Garter, a jingle ring, a harp's tuning key, an architect's set square/level, a dagger, a tabor, a
pair of gauntlets, a circular mirror, papal keys, an eyeglass case, an armillary sphere, and a
quadrant.
A comparison with "hooked" items at Urbino provokes 30

Fig. 2.50. North corner of Gubbio
studiolo. the following speculations. The empty hook at Urbino is
probably designated for the jingle ring. The duke's

elevation to the Order of the Garter was clearly one of his most prized achievements, since it is
the only object in either studiolo to be fixed permanently by its hook. Mirrors and armillary
spheres, too, were highly valued and prominently displayed. At Gubbio, the hooks for both are
located not inside but rather above their cabinets, a condition that would influence the
"operability" of the respective cabinet doors, as with the rectangular glass mirror at Urbino.33
Also, it is worth keeping in mind that many of these "suspended" objects are shaped like
letters of the alphabet.
Fig. 2.51. Bench legs, Gubbio Fig. 2.52. Ceiling and funnel
studiolo. windows, Gubbio studiolo.
Fig. 2.53. Exterior faade of Gubbio

studiolo.
Dwelling on other details in the intarsia, we discern that shadows cast by the 21 bench legs 31
and within the cabinets correspond to direct light admitted by the southeast wall through the
window niche and two smaller light funnels located discreetly overhead. Scrutiny of these
shadows, more crisply rendered than those at Urbino, does not point to a specific "frozen"
instant; rather, the shadows evoke the transit of early to late morning light.34 As at Urbino,
wheels are found below the benches. Here, however, subdivided discs encircle eight of the legs
horizontally. Below the benches there are no cabinets.
Fig. 2.54. Pipe and tabor, candied Fig. 2.55. Detail of ceiling, Gubbio
fruits, Gubbio studiolo. studiolo.
Although the studioli are equally "cerebral" and "wondrous," the pronounced formality at 32
Gubbio would have been particularly conducive for cultivating right and orderly mental habits
in a young prince.35 Guidobaldo's youth appears to have influenced two other details in the
chamber. Where the candied fruit are openly "shared" at Urbino, at Gubbio they are more
discreetly tucked away in one of the cabinets, like the promise of reward. This detail would be
most appropriate: where Federico would magnanimously share his life's rewards through
works that display the princely magnificentia recommended by Alberti, Castiglione, and
Machiavelli, Guidobaldo had yet to earn his own, a matter that is reflected in the ceiling
ornament.36 Instead of the various emblems and awards displayed at Urbino, Gubbio's ceiling
coffers are decorated with hanging rosettes.

2.3 A Phenomenological Reading of the Studioli
Many layers of experience await visitors to the studioli, whether they proceed by curiosity and 33
instinct or follow the narrative of a manual or docent. Most present-day visitors are drawn
immediately to examine the intarsia at close range: there is an almost overpowering desire to
touch the wood paneling for the wonder of its craftsmanship, a tactile component
foreshortened by museum etiquette. Visitors may also "enter" by iconographic familiarity
with various images or through the Latin texts woven into both chambers. Others intuitively
search the studioli architecture for standpoints from which the composition(s) might be best
appreciated. However and wherever a visitor begins, it is swiftly apparent that there is so
much to absorb that a full reading of either chamber, were it possible, would exhaust even the
most rapacious observer. Clearly, the studioli were intended for slow and pleasurable
digestion.
Fig. 2.56. Basket with fruit, Urbino Fig. 2.57. Lute with broken strings,
studiolo. Urbino studiolo.
We can easily lose ourselves in the extraordinary detail of the intarsia alone. Pomegranates 34
burst with ripeness. "Glass" and "metal" surfaces sparkle. Even the broken strings of the lutes
and harp are rendered with highlights. We find ourselves counting the seeds scattered at the
bottom of the Urbino birdcage (there are 13). Amid the many images of transiencethe
burning candle and taper, the dwindling sands of the hourglasswe imagine the scent of
melting wax and the parrots' chatter, accompanied by the mechanisms of the adjacent clock.
How would a first-time visitor to one of the studioli have oriented him- or herself in such a
private, yet openly displayed chamber?37 For Federico's guests, who were well versed in
Latin, any available text would have provided straightforward points of departure. In fact, the
influence of textual habits reveals a fundamental way that Federico's guests were likely to
have experienced the studioli.
The preceding accounts of the Urbino and Gubbio studioli demonstrate the ancient rhetorical 35
practice of ekphrasis, by which a narrative rendering proceeds in a "relaxed" manner from top
to bottom in a downward left-to-right spiral. En route, the "reader" encounters other forms of
compositionencomia, proverbs, and poetrythat produce eddies in an otherwise continuous
flow that draws the eye (and body) around the chambers. Although the duke and his visitors
shared this fundamental habit of reading and description,38 it was by no means the only way
of navigating the studioli. For a quattrocento observer, whose education fostered this skill as
one of the 14 preparatory exercises of the progymnasmata,39 the density and character of
images and text in the studioli provided a "Rhetoricus"40 with not one but endless routes for
narrative composition. Careful consideration of these figures reveals clues to the underlying
organization of the studioli.

Fig. 2.58. Ceiling, Urbino studiolo. Ekphrasis, Urbino Studiolo
At Urbino, there are two overlapping orientations. The first, emphasized by text and heraldic 36
emblems in the north wall,41 corresponds to the visitor's entrance as a narrative "starting
point" (or status). The other, overarching order corroborates with the duke's entrance. If we
consider the ceiling with care, we discern that the emblems within its coffers are uniformly
oriented to be viewed while facing the east wall, an arrangement that projects a "destination"
(or skopos)42 for the duke and, perhaps, for all of his guests.
Because the Gubbio studiolo has only one entry and the status of Veterani's distych is not 37
immediately opposite the entrance, the visitor enters searching for a visual grapple-hold. The
ceiling rosettes yield no direction. As with the duke's entrance at Urbino, however, the text
begins in the corner to the immediate left (with the word Aspicis), an arrangement that
suggests an idealized choreography by which the duke and his guests would enter and turn to
face the northwest wall to "begin" viewing the contents of the chamber. The primacy of this
wall is evident from the centered, vertical alignment of the mazzocchio and the Order of the
Garter, which extends upward to the fixing gaze of the goddess Rhetoric.
Each studiolo is fitted with ornamental details that 38

Fig. 2.59. Montage of vertical axis
in northwest wall, Gubbio studiolo. suggest a prime site, or standpoint, from which the
trompe l'oeil snaps into place and feels "right."43 At
Urbino's, roughly square in plan, this standpoint is readily ascertained at the chamber's
center. At Gubbio's, which is trapezoidal, the prime site is established with more subtlety.
Although the centered, vertical axis in the northwest wall provides a strong indication of its
whereabouts, there are more precisely calibrated details in the window niche. Closer
inspection of the ornamental surrounds of threaded discs suggests an ideal viewpoint
approximately one step back into the chamber from the window niche. One of these discs, at
168 centimeters above the floor, also reveals an ideal height for viewing the chamber.44
Rotating on the center-point to face the northwest wall, we meet the gaze of Rhetoric,
fastening us into the spatial orthography of the studiolo architecture.
More elusive than the prime sites are certain optical 39

Fig. 2.60. Threaded disc surrounds,
effects that are detectable only when moving about the Gubbio studiolo.
rooms. Shadows from the mace's tip at Urbino, for
example, "appear" and "disappear" depending on our position. Other objects in the
composition, such as the flutes and recorders on the bench, appear to "follow" in concert as
we traverse the chamber. Likewise, the latticed cabinet shutters in both studioli "swing" open
and close with our movement across the room, evoking the uncanny sensation that our eyes
are manipulating the "contents" of the rooms.

Fig. 2.61. Lute anamorphosis, part Fig. 2.62. Lute anamorphosis, part
1, Urbino studiolo. 2, Urbino studiolo.
Fig. 2.63. Lute anamorphosis, part Fig. 2.64. Author's montage of

3, Urbino studiolo. cabinet doors from three positions
to demonstrate their "swing."
Anamorphosis, Urbino Studiolo
This physical and mental experience is likely not far removed from the "certain experience of 40
sense" Nicholas of Cusa described in De visione Dei (1453), a meditation manual that employs
the inescapable gaze of a religious icon as a metaphor for the "omnivoyant" gaze of God.
Referring to a work of Roger van der Weyden, Cusa marvels that the icon's eyes appear to
follow him as he moves about the room while they simultaneously remain fixed on another
person who stands motionless.45 On one hand, Cusa considers this phenomenon to exemplify
the limited nature of human visionits capacity to be deceived.46 Yet he also sees this frailty
as an ultimate strength, providing adepts of meditation an "easy path" to mystic theologyan
unmediated knowledge of Godthat is otherwise beyond the human condition. Cusa's
wonderment at "the painter's cunning art" leads him to admit the ignorance of his own
intellect and seek truth at the coincidentia oppositorum, a point of dark impossibility "beyond
all the grasp of reason."47
We can imagine the duke and his guests repeatedly traversing the studioli in astonishment at 41
the uncanny movement of the doors and flutes. These illusions were no simple party trick. The
studioli ornament evoked divine mystery, embodying the essence of Cusa's philosophy by the
mathesis of perspective and the artisan's cunning wisdom.
Further levels of interpretation unfold gradually. Some emblems are purely two-dimensional, 42
including the heraldic devices of the Montefeltro and the awards Federico had accumulated
during his career, from his appointment as knight of the pope and promotion to the status of
duke to his celebrated induction into the chivalric Orders of the Ermine and the Garter. Other
figures hover enigmatically between the symbolic and utilitarian. The astrolabe and chess
pieces, for example, offered rebuses for memory training and metaphors of prudent
governance in addition to their more familiar applications in astronomical observation and
gentlemanly gamesmanship.
Fig. 2.65. Chess pieces, Urbino

The boundary between cipher and object is not always 43
studiolo. crisp. The ermine emblematically depicted in the dado is
elsewhere suspended from the collar that Federico had
received from the king of Naples; in each studiolo this collar dangles from a drawer or cabinet.

Furthermore, the illusionistic shadows cast beneath the benches and within the cabinets
"originate" from apertures in the rooms, blurring the distinction between actual and ideal.48
The more closely we investigate this "blur," the more contradictions arise. As Martin Kemp
notes, the illusionism in the studioli is achieved "through an aggregate of compelling motifs
which lead us to assume more overall coherence than is apparent on close analysis. We are, in
effect, cunningly seduced into seeing more lucidity than the designer has actually supplied."49
Fig. 2.66. Small scale portrait of

Duke Federico.
At Urbino, in particular, we find a heterogeneous juxtaposition of scale and compositions. It 44

appears, for example, that the four miniature figures of Federico and the theological virtues
could inhabit the faux studiolo, whereas just next to the duke's portrait we see his armor at
full scale. Likewise, compositionally, the fictive scene in the east wall does not continue to
either side but is "interrupted" by the armory to the left and the miniature studiolo to the
right.
These discontinuities should not be considered "flaws" in verisimilitude; rather, they disclose 45
that the prerogative of the studioli, like Cusa's religious icon, was to strikeeven unsettlethe
emotions of its observers. As an observer's movements "activated" certain images,
sympathetically these images triggered the mind and emotions of the observer. Through their
architectural arrangement and ornament, the studioli were conceived to stimulate movement
in an observer's sensing body and apprehending intellect.
When Alberti describes the appropriate nature of a work's historia, echoing Hugh of St. 46
Victor's earlier recommendations for constructing a mnemonic "ark,"50 he foreshadows the
arresting character of the Montefeltro studioli:
A "historia" you can justifiably praise and admire will be one that reveals itself to
be so charming and attractive as to hold the eye of the learned and unlearned
spectator for a long while with a certain sense of pleasure and emotion. The first
thing that gives pleasure in a "historia" is a plentiful variety. Just as with food
and music, novel and extraordinary things delight us for various reasons but
especially because they are different from the old ones we are used to. . . . When
the spectators dwell on observing all the details, then the painter's richness will
acquire favour.51
One particular figural arrangement that would have 47

Fig. 2.67. East wall of Urbino
studiolo. captivated Federico's guests is found at Urbino's east
wall. Rebecca Tenzer has noted that the book press
behind the image of the city is known in Latin as an armarium. The miniature studiolo to the
right represents a place of study known also as an armariolum. Meanwhile, Federico's armor
was known as arma, and an arsenal for arms and armor was called an armamentum. With

weapons and instruments of scholarship interspersed throughout its cabinets, this

etymological playtransparent to Federico's colleagues 52 suggests that the entire Urbino
studiolo may be interpreted simultaneously as an armariolum and armamentum, a witty spin
on the traditional rhetorical trope of the vita activa and vita contemplativa.53
Wolfgang Leibenwein has discerned another narrative 48

Fig. 2.68. Civic space, east wall,
from the east wall imagery, in the form of an ethical Urbino studiolo.
fable.54 "The prudent ruler [represented by the squirrel],
enriched by the experience and humanity derived from his active/contemplative pursuits [the
dialectic of armariolum/armamentum], provides for the well-being [the basket of fruit] of his
state [the cityscape and surrounding lands]."55 Dwelling on the image of the squirrel, one
wonders why it is shown wearing a collar. There was a careful distinction, it appears, between
a prince who prudently gathers provisions and one who hoards: the collared squirrel with its
nut does not suggest the domestication of nature but rather the domestication of human
nature, namely the vice of avarice.56
Even further rhetorical invention may be deduced from 49

Fig. 2.69. Dinocrates presenting the
model of a city to Alexander the the east wall considering the broad interests of Francesco
Great. di Giorgio, who is generally regarded as the "author" of
this area of the Urbino studiolo.57 In 1475 or 1476, di
Giorgio presented a volume of architectural drawings to Federico, the Opusculum de
architectura, that offered his services to the duke as Dinocrates had to Alexander the Great
and Vitruvius had to Caesar Augustus. Di Giorgio's treatise was deeply influenced by
Vitruvius's De architectura, a favorite of Federico's.58 In the preface to the Opusculum, di
Giorgio claims to appreciate the value of work experience and daily reading, a choice of words
that resonates with the intarsia design and the second passage of Vitruvius's treatise:
"Architects who without culture aim at manual skill cannot gain a prestige corresponding to
their labours, while those who trust to theory and literature obviously follow a shadow and
not reality. But those who have mastered both, like men equipped in full armour, soon acquire
influence and attain their purpose."59 Although the civic space of the east wall appears devoid
of the type of historia found in di Giorgio's other works, including the Allegory of Discord of
1476, we may discern how the architectural ornament of this walland of the studioli in
generalprepared (ornare) an observer with visual cues and subject matter for rhetorical
invention.
All of these figural effects, pictorial and linguistic, 50

Fig. 2.70. An equivalent of the
contribute to a perception that the studioli were Urbino studiolo's east wall at
conceived to engage the entire body as well as the eye, a Gubbio?
tactic that would enhance the memorability of the
intellectual content of the chambers while conveying the artisans' mastery and the patron's
magnificentia. To this end, the studioli provided the Montefeltro dukes with treasuries of
images that were readily preserved within the memory, including that of a visiting dignitary,

who would then recount to others the marvelous "sorts" of wisdom cultivated at the Urbino
court. This propagandistic character, underpinned with influences of classical and medieval
pedagogy, suggests that the studioli should be considered as idealized settings in which
Federico and Guidobaldo would compose themselves and their thoughts as part of their
responsibilities of governance.

Notes
Note 1: The terra-cotta tiles were installed in the late sixteenth century. The floors of both studioli
were originally of wood. Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:83.
Note 2: Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:44.
Note 4: Alberti, Art of Building, 10.14.356.
Note 5: Thornton, Scholar in His Study, 43.
Note 6: A book press is the traditional term for a cabinet set into the depth of a wall.
Note 7: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 9. See also Alberti's analogy of the city-house/house-city
in Art of Building, 1.9.23.
Note 8: Alterations to this wing were not actually completed until after the death of Battista Sforza
in 1472. According to Vespasiano, the privacy bestowed on this wing was continued into
Guidobaldo's reign: "Federico's daughters, attended by many noble and worthy ladies, occupied a
wing of the palace whither went no one but the Signor Ottaviano and the young prince." Vespasiano
da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 107.
Note 9: For an account of this indecorous episode, see Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and
Malatesta, 25. Federico, who was stationed in Pesaro, returned immediately to Urbino but was not
permitted to enter the city to claim leadership until he had signed a constitutional agreement with
the citizens. For the details of this pact, see Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, 1:41720.
There has long been speculation that Federico was involved directly or indirectly in Oddantonio's
murder to clear a path to the leadership of Urbino, though it is worth noting that Federico did not
receive the title of duke for another thirty years, since it was nontransferable. Suspicion also
surrounded Sigismondo Malatesta, who long aspired to annex Urbino to Rimini and was believed to
have conspired to the young duke's demise with a younger brother, Malatesta Novello (also
Oddantonio's brother-in-law), and Tommaso di Guido dell'Agnello of Rimini. For details, see Pernis
and Adams, Montefeltro and Malatesta, 925. Local history has pointed to the possibility of an
accident of uncertain authorship, a display of force gone awry. Whether for theater or in earnest, or a
combination thereof, Federico pardoned the murderers, granted Urbino's citizens expanded
privileges, and assumed governance.
Note 10: "Oltre la libreria vi una cameretta destinata allo studio nell'appartamento principale,
d'intorno alla quale sono sedili di legno con gli appoggi ed una tavola nel mezzo: lavorato il tutto
diligentissimamente d'opera d'intarsi e d'intagli. Dall'opera di legno, che cos ricopre il pavimento
come la muraglia d'intorno all'altezza di un uomo o poco pi, infino alla soffitta, le facciate sono
distinte in alcuni quadri, in ciascuno dei quali ritratto qualche famoso scrittore antico o moderno
con breve elogietto, nel quale ristrettamente si compendia la vita di ciascheduno di loro." From Baldi,
Della vita e de'fatti di Montefeltro, cited by Cosimus Stornajolo (Codices urbinates graeci, xiv). My
own translation, with assistance from A. Botta and A. Saiber. See also Vespasiano da Bisticci,
Vespasian Memoirs, 101.
Note 11: It is generally accepted that the Urbino studiolo was completed in 1476, the date presented
in the dedicatory text. Since Federico is described as duke, a title he had been invested with by Pope
Sixtus IV on 21 August 1474, we may assert that the chamber's decorative program was commenced
at least as early as 1474.
Note 12: The specific arrangement of these portraits and their surrounding ornament, convincingly
reconstructed by Rotondi, Ducal Palace of Urbino, and Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, point to several
quattrocento debates. These, and differing opinions regarding the layout of the portraits, are
addressed in chapter 6. For the written encomia that accompany the portraits, visit the Gallery of the
Illustrious Men.

Note 13: The duke and duchess occupied this group of rooms during the palace construction.
Note 14: The seven-lobed flower is also unusual. A similarly patterned green textile appears in the
background of Hans Holbein the Younger's The Ambassadors (1533).
Note 15: Although Raggio (Gubbio Studiolo, 114) correctly identifies this explosive device as a
petard, the term grenade is appropriate due to a play of words and images (with pomegranates)
discussed in chapter 6.
Note 16: Virginia Tenzer observes that the towers depicted in the intarsia are squared, whereas the
torrecini of the ducal palace are cylindrical ("Iconography," 199).
Note 17: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 26.
Note 18: Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:186n7.
Note 19: Descriptions provided by Wilmering (Gubbio Studiolo, 2:apps. 4, 5) are from the
nineteenth century.
Note 20: I.V. #543.
Note 22: Proposals by Lorne Campbell, Luciano Cheles, Cecil Clough, Marcin Fabianski, and Olga
Raggio offer informative and conflicting evidence; without further original documentation, however,
all arguments remain speculative. Although this debate is not central to my argument, I offer the
following observations. Raggio's updated interpretation of the chamber's Latin inscription clarifies
the relation between Justice and Piety, providing a convincing rebuttal to Campbell's doubts over the
original presence of the paintings in the Gubbio studiolo (1998: "Justus of Ghent," 28586). Raggio
also regards the phrase Venerande Matris (Venerable Mother) as a key to understanding the text and
its relationship to the theme of the liberal arts (Gubbio Studiolo, 1:160), a point with which I concur
(for slightly different reasons) and develop in chapter 3. Although there is no shortage of views on the
arrangement of the portraits, all agree on one point. The four surviving images each include the
fragment of a dedicatory text depicted in a background cornicethe same text found in the cornice
(and mini-studiolo) in the Urbino studiolo. This detail is generally accepted as a basic ordering
principal, though there is disagreement over how the portraits fit into the wall space provided.
Although all concur that the three verbal arts (Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectic) occupied the
northwest wall and that Arithmetic and Geometry (both missing) more than likely occupied the
northeast wall, doubt continues over the placement of Astronomy and Music. Were they on the wall
with windows or over the entrance? Although the Music panel contains the conclusion of the text
passage, hence logically completing the circuit of the room, several have urged that it could not have
been above the entrance owing to the contradiction of its shadows and the actual positions of
windows in the studiolo. This point does not dissuade Raggio (Gubbio Studiolo, 1:166), who cites the
"indifferent" lighting conditions found in the East and West walls of the uomini illustri in the Urbino
studiolo to explain the inconsistencies (for the debate regarding the portraits at Urbino, see chapter
6n70). It should also be noted that the source of illumination is not convincingly resolved if
Astronomy and Music were located over (or between?) the funnel windows of the southeast wall, in
spite of Clough's claims. Previously, Fabianski and Clough proposed schemes that include the seven
Liberal Arts portraits and a larger painting by Justus of Ghent featuring Federico and Guidobaldo
with a small group listening to a lecture, traditionally referred to as the Oration, which both place
above the door. Fabianski's argument is founded on the presumption that the two funnel windows
and the upper portion of the window niche were bricked in before the studiolo was installed
(Fabianski, "Federigo da Montefeltro's Studiolo in Gubbio Reconsidered," 210). Raggio observes that
precisely because these areas were not bricked, the studiolo could have accommodated only the
Liberal Arts portraits (without the Oration), though her suggestion that the remaining wall surfaces
in the upper windowed wall "probably also had a wooden revetment, probably without paintings,"
seems unlikely, given its inconsistency with the studioli compositions, with intarsia below and oil
paintings above (Gubbio Studiolo, 1:83, 154). Meanwhile, Clough conjectures the following, based on
an historical contract for the room's decoration: "Presumably the wall space in plum color was

essentially the area around the openings of the two slant windows" ("Art as Power," 41), an
interesting supposition for reasons I describe in chapter 5. Yet Clough's offering is self-contradictory,
since he also suggests (in the same article) that the funnel windows were bricked in (23). He asserts:
"I suggest it more likely that each of the Seven Liberal Arts was immediately above the seven
cupboards of the marquetry," directing his reader to an image that depicts the portraits of
Astronomy and Music over the funnel windows, effectively blocking them. It is also unclear exactly to
which cabinets Clough refers, since there are ten cabinets represented in the central area of the
studiolo and 13 in all (including the window niche with its missing shutters). His notion that the
decoration of the Gubbio studiolo evolved and possibly changed during installation may, however,
hold a grain of truth: it is conceivable that the area above the window (excluding the funnel
windows) could have been filled in after the Liberal Arts cycle had been completed, providing new
wall surface for either Astronomy and Music or the Oration (which would be a very close fit, if at all
possible). But there is a preponderance of ifs in this rationale, so until further clues emerge, I find
most tenable Raggio's recent layout (1999), with the slight adjustments to nomenclature provided in
the following note.
Note 23: Rhetoric and Music are at the National Gallery of London. Dialectics and Astronomy were
destroyed in Berlin during World War II and exist now only in black-and-white photographic
negatives. As to the identities of the kneeling figures, there is some consensus regarding Costanzo
Sforza (Federico's brother-in-law) and Ptolemy/Ferrante I (Federico's patron from 1458), and
Federico's profile, though aged, is undeniable. Less certain is the identity of the youth at the center of
the northwest wall. Raggio's suggestion that this "could be Guidobaldo" (Gubbio Studiolo, 1:160)
holds special merit if the painting cycle were completed in 1482 or 1483, when Guidobaldo would
have been ten or 11. It is also difficult to imagine such a prominent position within the orthography of
the studiolo occupied by someone other than the young prince, especially given the details found in
the cabinet near the window. It should be noted that Raggio's view on the portrait with Federico has
changed somewhat; she now states that the duke is portrayed with the goddess of Grammar rather
than Dialectic (compare Raggio and Wilmering, Liberal Arts Studiolo, 32, with Raggio, Gubbio
Studiolo, 1:159): "To the right a window leads the eye toward a room with an open door, the
traditional symbol of the gateway to knowledge, which suggests that the allegorical figure leaning
toward Federico should be identified with Grammar rather than Dialectic." This is an extremely
tenuous thread. Grammar, the earliest stage of learning, would be more logically placed directly
above the beginning of Veterani's distych. Most important, Vespasiano emphasizes Federico's passion
for dialectical disputation, a more fitting characteristic for the duke's memorialization than
rudimentary Grammar.
Note 24: I.V. #492. Virgil Aeneid 310 (vv. 65053).
Note 26: There are 24 objects found on the benches at Urbino and eight at Gubbio (including a
perspectival butterfly from the missing panels below the window). Likewise, there are 94 (possibly
96) books depicted at Urbino and 32 at Gubbio. Urbino's cabinets contain approximately 148 items,
compared with 74 at Gubbio. My technique for tallying the contents was uncomplicated: grouped
items, such as the bundles of fasces or container of candied fruits, counted as one item. As a result,
there are two bundles of fasces (rather than forty individual rods) and one container of candied fruits
rather than 12 individual candies. Even with such inexact science the ratio of the respective contents
is striking.
Note 27: This manuscript originally displayed the text and score of O Bella Rosa (Urb. Lat. 1411, fols.
7r9v), a popular song written in the style of Leonardo Giustiniani, that was interpreted by
Johannes Ciconia and John Dunstable. Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:143.
Note 28: Since the bench beside the lectern is raised, and the base of the lectern overhangs the
exposed side edge of the seat beneath, it would appear that the bench seat had been raised while
retrieving the lectern from the cabinet, which was then placed on the bench below. Although this

procedural logic is consistent with similar upraised-bench/opened-cabinet arrangements at Urbino, it

seems that the lectern would be too tall to fit within the cabinet unless the upper portion of the
lectern were removed.
Note 29: A geometrically faceted wooden ring used in fashionable Florentine headwear, such as that
worn by Guidobaldo in his portrait with Rhetoric, directly above. It is also a figure favored for
perspectival explorations by such artists as Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello. In the Urbino
studiolo, the mazzocchio is found in a south wall cabinet.
Note 30: Used in surveying and perspective, the butterfly was part of the intarsia beneath the
window that has been destroyed. Fortunately, it was preserved by photographic record.
Note 31: An ancient Roman symbol of authority, found in the Urbino studiolo in a north wall
cabinet.
Note 32: It is difficult to determine whether there is an unoccupied hook at the top of the cabinet
above the portative organ.
Note 33: The scopetta is similarly suspended.
Note 34: Inconsistencies in the shadows have led some to suggest that the cycle of the Liberal Arts
was not originally located in the Gubbio studiolo. Raggio's less radical position is more tenable
(Gubbio Studiolo, 1:16667). Inconsistencies in lighting are also found at Urbino, likely due to the
same earthbound complications that confront contemporary craftsmanshipbusy artisans, an over-
reliance on assistants and, in the case of the Gubbio intarsia, the fact that they were fabricated at a
distance, in Florence.
Note 35: "Confusion," asserted Hugh of St. Victor, "is the mother of ignorance and forgetfulness, but
orderly arrangement illuminates the intelligence and firms up memory." De Tribus Maximus
Circumstantiis gestorum (quoted in Carruthers, Book of Memory, app. A, 261). See also Wilmering,
Gubbio Studiolo, 2:107: "The Gubbio studiolo . . . is a more formal and perhaps more cerebral setting
a place for learning and conducting business."
Note 36: Luciano Cheles observes: "for magnificentia to be of any political consequence, works of
art needed to be displayed rather than secretly treasured" (Studiolo of Urbino, 91). It is also fitting
that the pipe and taborinstruments played during military marchingare placed alongside the
candied fruit as a reminder of Guidobaldo's worldly responsibilities as a condottiere.
Note 37: As I discuss in chapter 6, it is possible that an esteemed visitor may have waited
unattended in the Urbino studiolo while the duke completed matters elsewhere. Otherwise, it is likely
that Federico or one of his ministers would have been present to point out specific images and details
in a manner akin to the medieval presentation of "ornatus" in a religious shrine. In Peregrinatio
religionis ergo (ca. 1512), Erasmus recounts an abbot's jewel-by-jewel discourse at Canterbury,
performed in the tradition of Abbot Suger of St. Denis. Bann, "Cabinet of Curiosities," 6468.
Note 38: It is worth noting the celebrated discovery of the Iguvian tablets in a farmer's field at
Gubbio in 1444. These bronze tablets preserved the settlement rituals of the Umbrian civilization
(composed right to left) alongside Latin translations (notated left to right).
Note 39: Fundamental to writing and oration from ancient Rome, the progymnasmata trained
students to work with visual figures and compositional units. Other examples in the studioli are
addressed in chapters 3 and 4. According to Aphthonius, the progymnasmata comprised 14 exercises.
His treatise, entered in the Indice Vecchio as "Aphtonius [sic] sophista, graec. 88," was bound
together with Hermogenes' work on the subject (both in Greek). Other entries on the progymnasmata
at Urbino included Libanius (I.V. #467, 468; graec. 78, 79, 81, 9496) and Aelius Spartianus (I.V.
#373; p. CXLIX, n. 47), who may represent Aelius Theon. See Kennedy, New History of Classical
Rhetoric, 2028.
Note 40: "The men we call early 'humanists' generally described themselves as 'orator' or
'rhetoricus.'" Leonard, Into the Light, 206n8.

Note 41: The emblems in the pilaster capitals, for example, do not appear elsewhere in other
capitals.
Note 42: "Skopos, a Greek word, is literally the target of a bowman, the mark towards which he
gazes as he aims." This term was important, "not only in rhetoric, but also in the discourse of
philosophical meditation." Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 79.
Note 43: In each studiolo there are images (such as the latticework of the cabinet doors) whose
anamorphic distortion guides the observer to a place from which the distortion appears to be
"resolved." See Kemp, "Making It Work," 16977.
Note 44: Naturally, one wonders whose eye-height determined the horizon for the threaded discs.
Federico's? Ottaviano's? An "average" viewer's? The artisan's? Guidobaldo cannot have been tall
enough at the time the studiolo was completed. Might the height of Federico's eye have provided a
natural measuring sticka goal of sortsfor the young prince to grow into? We can only speculate.
However, it is difficult to imagine that so specific a detail, which appears nowhere else in the studioli,
would have been generated randomly.
Note 45: Nicholas of Cusa, Vision of God, 42. Cusa's reference to Roger van der Weyden is found at
3.
Note 46: "Our sight, through the mirror of the eye, can only see that particular object toward which
it is turned." Cusa, Vision of God, 37.
Note 47: Cusa, Vision of God, 43. The coincidentia oppositorum is a central tenet of Cusa's
philosophy of learned ignorance, derived from Dionysius the Areopagite and articulated in Cusa's
treatise De docta ignorantia (1440). "I have learnt that the place wherein Thou art found unveiled is
girt round with the coincidence of contradictories, and this is the wall of Paradise wherein Thou dost
abide." Vision of God, 44.
Note 48: Taking Federico's monocular vision into consideration, one can imagine how marvelously
real the cabinets and their contents would have appeared to the duke.
Note 49: Kemp, "Making It Work," 174.
Note 50: Recall the epigraph to this chapter.
Note 51: Alberti, On Painting, trans. Grayson, 2.40.
Note 52: Etymological invention was basic to a humanist education. The studioli are well stocked
with examples of figural play between word and image.
Note 53: Tenzer, "Iconography," 202.
Note 54: Ethical fabulation, employing animals, is another of the progymnasmata exercises.
Note 55: Liebenwein, Studiolo, 21112n334. As cited by Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 64, with my
clarifications.
Note 56: For the Christian association of squirrels with avarice, see Cooper, Illustrated
Encyclopaedia, 158.
Note 57: Rotondi, Il palazzo ducale di Urbino, 1:348. Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:89.
Note 58: Di Giorgio's treatise was accompanied by marvelous drawings of mechanisms, many of
which were incorporated into the facade of the ducal palace through the hands of Ambrogio Barrocci,
master sculptor. There were two copies of Vitruvius present in the ducal library: I.V. #291 and #292.
Note 59: Vitruvius, De architectura, 1.1.2. Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:46.

CHAPTER THREE
Material and Mental Craft in the Late Quattrocento:

Several Hypotheses Concerning the Studioli
The building is a form of body, which like any other consists of lineaments and
matter, the one the product of thought, the other of Nature; the one requiring
the mind and the power of reason, the other dependent on preparation and
selection; but we realized that neither on its own would suffice without the hand
of the skilled workman to fashion the material according to lineaments.
Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, Prologue.5
Fig. 3.1. The "most perfect" O. Fig. 3.2. Mensurations of the

human head.
From a historical vantage, the Montefeltro studioli are often regarded for their display of 1
mathesis universalis, the notion of a proportional harmony underlying all phenomena. This
harmony, it was believed, could be divined through the mathematical arts, including music,
astronomy, arithmetic, and geometry, and conveyed by drawings and models cast from the
architect's imagination through the hand of the fabricator to frame human activities. In the
studioli, this commensurability is embodied in the virtuoso marriage of intarsia and the
principles of artificial perspective, developed empirically in the early 15th century by Filippo
Brunelleschi and formalized by Leon Battista Alberti in De pictura.1 Although this work was
conceived for the art of painting, it was the intarsiatori, rather than painters, who were first
considered the maestri di prospettiva, likely due to a metaphoric kinship between the cut of
the intarsist's knife across the wood and the cut of the eye across the latticed surfaces of a
perspectivally harnessed space.
Alberti likely contributed to the notion of a perspectival 2

Fig. 3.3. A perspectival velo of
intersections. arrangement for the Montefeltro intarsia, given his long-
standing friendship with Federico and several members
of the Urbino court, including Piero della Francesca.2 In the following century, Giorgio Vasari
would recount how Brunelleschi had shown his method to Florentine intarsiatori,
"stimulating them to such an extent that he gave rise to many good and useful things
produced in that art both then and afterwards which have brought fame and profit to
Florence."3 In the years during which the studioli were fabricated, Vasari notes, "there were
no fewer than 84 [Florentine] botteghe where tarsia work was in full practice."4 The
popularity of this medium in the quattrocento was reflected in the The Fat Woodworker, a
humorous story in which Brunelleschi plays a practical joke on a hefty intarsist named
Manetto, making him "vanish."5

Architecture and Memory Chapter Three Robert Kirkbride
By the cinquecento, however, enthusiasm for intarsia had waned. "Although it may indeed be 3
both praiseworthy and masterly," Vasari notes, producing " . . . figures, fruit, and animals . . .
most lifelike," the practice was condemned as "time thrown away in vain . . . since it is a work
that soon becomes black . . . and is also of short duration because of worms and fire."6 As
further evidence of the medium's diminished status, Vasari cites the career of Benedetto da
Maiano, a Florentine master who with his brother Giuliano executed much of the intarsia in
the Montefeltro studioli.7 Benedetto, who is described as one of the finest intarsiatori,
eventually judged the medium "a useless thing and completely abandoned it."8 Fortuitously,
then, the studioli offer the most comprehensive examples of Renaissance perspectival intarsia
to have survived the subsequent centuries of despoliation, relocation, ad hoc restorations, fire,
and woodworms.
From comments made by Federico's biographers and scholars, as well as those offered by the 4
duke himself, one might assume that the court of Urbino held the mathematical arts in
preeminence to the verbal arts.9 In his patent of 1468, awarding Luciano Laurana the
architectural commission for the ducal palace at Urbino, Federico famously declared: "We
deem as worthy of honor and commendation men gifted with ingenuity and remarkable skills,
and particularly those which have always been prized by both Ancients and Moderns, as has
been the skill [virt] of architecture, founded upon the arts of arithmetic and geometry, which
are the foremost of the seven liberal arts because they depend upon exact certainty."10
Although this passage might seem to quell further doubts on the matter, we must consider a
curious and telling detail: if the arts of arithmetic and geometry were perceived as preeminent
to the verbal arts, why then was Guidobaldothe young heir-apparent to Federico's dukedom
depicted in the Gubbio studiolo with the art of rhetoric and not with one of the
mathematical arts?
This question may be addressed on (at least) three levels. In humanistic pedagogy, the verbal 5
arts offered precepts for the early stages of learning, and in fact the construction of the Gubbio
studiolo coincided with this period of Guidobaldo's education.11 Second, highly cultivated
skills of diplomatic eloquence and persuasion were required to negotiate the interlacing wiles
of an Italic peninsula constantly in turmoil, whether among its own fractious powers or in the
shadow of the encroaching Ottoman Empire. It was not out of humanist conceit that
Guidobaldo's tutor Ludovico Odasio considered the "powers" of eloquence and an extensive
acquaintance with history to be "the great aim of a princely education."12 Duke Federico's
own successful career had greatly hinged on the interception of and vituperative response to a
discrediting letter written by his lifelong nemesis, Sigismondo Malatesta.13
The third and most comprehensive response forms the basis of this study. During the 6
Renaissance, and particularly at the court of Urbino, categorical divisions of thought and
learning were more fluid and hypothetical than we might expect: the pursuit of one mode of
learning was perceived not as contrary to but rather to the enrichment of another.14 While
architecture, for example, represented a consummation of mathematics (as evident in

Federico's patent), it served also as an educational model for memory building and oration.
Consequently, the study of rhetoric was not limited to oral and verbal expression: by its
architectonic precepts, rhetoric was intimately interlaced with mathematics.
In fact, it was not unusual that a renowned mathematician such as Paul of Middleburg, who 7
served as court astrologer for both Federico and Guidobaldo, had transcribed a treatise on
rhetoric earlier in his career. Numerous contemporary works on rhetoric underscored the
significance of mathematics in oratory training,15 while other ancient and popular texts
presented the mathematical-linguistic relationship from a complementary angle. In Plato's
Timaeus, for example, the story of Phathon is described as a myth that helps to explain the
cyclical motions of the celestial bodies.16 Nonetheless, as history tends to alight on the
unusual and overlook the commonplace, evaluations of the studioli have centered on the
historical significance of the perspectival compositions and their mathematical
underpinnings.
It is probably for this reason that the mnemonic character of the studioli has not been 8
previously addressed.17 As Peter Thornton notes, "In trying to envisage how our ancestors
lived at any period, certainty is of course hard to come by and, all too often, one has to guess.
Particularly difficult is to discover what people at the time took for granted, which is
something they obviously do not bother to tell us."18 For the quattrocento, memory training
was deeply embedded in humanist pedagogy, not only through the recuperation of classical
treatises that address this subject directly, such as those composed by Cicero and Quintilian,
but also because this tradition had already been incorporated into, and transformed by,
medieval practices of meditation. From ancient Greece through the Renaissance, a well-
trained memory was perceived a pedagogical fundamental for reciprocity between thought
and action. One did not cultivate a fine memory for its own sake, or merely as a vehicle for
accurate information recall, but as the essential mental equipment for the formation of one's
character.
A translation and analysis of the Ars memorativa of Jacobus Publicius, a treatise originally 9
composed around 1460 and first printed in 1482, offers insight into commonplace mnemonic
practices during the period in which the studioli were constructed.19 Frequent and
widespread printings of this workVenice, Augsburg, Cologne, Toulouseattest to the
subject's popularity. General familiarity with the memory arts at this time was due largely to
the efforts of the mendicant orders, which had distributed their precepts throughout Europe
in previous centuries. It is not surprising, then, if we discover striking consistencies between
recommendations in this treatise and the visual character of the studioli.20
A further challenge to assessing the mnemonic quotient of the studioli is the practical matter 10
that memory is not a simple subject to retrace. Like time, memory has historically proven an
evocative yet evasive notion.21 As Frances Yates observes, "Memory architecture was
invisible: it used buildings for its purposes, but we can never see into the actual memories in
which these buildings were reflected."22 Although manuals and pedagogical diagrams

instructed the novice on various procedures for memory training, they scarcely hint at the
most vital part of the exercise, mnemonic invention, characterized by fluid, even improbable
associations. Images (described and illustrated) in memory treatises like Publicius's provided
rudimentary "staples" for visualization exercises. Advanced memory work consisted in
fabricating personalized images, culled from one's experience and arranged in the
imagination as a mental theater of memory prompts for the mind's eye.
Having reached their zenith in popularity in the 16th and 11

Fig. 3.4. A musical memory palace.
17th centuries, the arts of memory gradually faded from
common practice. Subsequently, a prodigious memory has been regarded more often as an
anomaly to be displayed at a sideshow or studied by a neuropsychologist as opposed to a craft
cultivated with patience and discipline.23 For these many reasons, the more traditional and
less extolled rhetorical and mnemonic undercurrents of the studioli have become obscured.
If the mnemonic tradition is indeed a cultural fossil, as Lina Bolzoni has suggested, the 12
Montefeltro studioli are informative carapaces.24 An appreciation of mnemonic constructs
such as the studioli calls for a different, more ponderous mode of investigation than has been
previously pursued. Perhaps, as Mary Carruthers suggests, "the first question one should ask
of such an image [environment] is not 'What does it mean?' but 'What is it good for?'"25
It is possible to enrich our understanding of the studioli by pursuing a line of inquiry hinted 13
upon by Alberto Prez-Gmez: "The [studioli] intarsia constituted the stage for a new orbis
studiorum, a new definition of knowledge distinct from medieval theology but not distant
from its aspirations."26 How did the studioli redefine the "sphere of knowledge"? What were
their classical and medieval precedents, and how are they similar to and different from them?
The significance of the studioli is multistranded and multilayered: multistranded in that the 14
chambers manifest a complex interweaving of multiple traditions of material and mental
craft; multilayered in that individual images could bear multiple meanings, whether alone or
as part of an ensemble. It is not fitting to seek a conclusive meaning for any single image: each
invites an initial iconographic reading that must expand to consider various autobiographical,
pedagogical, theological, and propagandistic contingencies. By delving into the significance(s)
of a given image, we begin to discover resonances with other images and to perceive subtle
relations that enlace the chambers.
This investigation dwells on images whose mnemonic associations have not been previously 15
assessed. Some have been analyzed for their iconographic relation to Prudence, a cardinal
virtue for which Duke Federico was renowned.27 In the quattrocento, as David Summers has
noted, Prudence was considered "a virtue of the practical intellect, the concerns of which were
usually thought to be ethical and political."28 Deeper associations between Prudence and
memory, however, have not yet been considered with regard to the studioli imagery.

Cicero, a humanist role model whose name appears in the Urbino studiolo intarsia as 16
"TVLIO," considered memory integral to the virtue of Prudence. "Memory is the faculty by
which the mind recalls what has happened. Intelligence is the faculty by which it ascertains
what is. Foresight is the faculty by which it is seen that something is going to occur before it
occurs." As the consummation of these three temporal aspects, Cicero defined Prudence as
"the knowledge of what is good, what is bad and what is neither good nor bad."29 Considering
Cicero's strong influence at the court of Urbino, this passage offers a promising clue. Other
images, too, in the studiolithose related to chess, for examplehave received only cursory
interpretations; their mnemonic ramifications have also remained unrecognized and will be
examined.
There is also a more "hands-on" approach to 17

Fig. 3.5. Detail of the virtues from
the Allegory of Good Government. understanding the studioli. By marveling at the material
Extended Caption 2 and intellectual ingenuity expressed in the studioli, we
have already begun to apprehend what the studioli are
"good for" and, more broadly, to intuit their contribution to "a new orbis studiorum." The
visual stimulation experienced in these chambers points to a multisensorial approach to
thought in which the training and exercise of the memory was not purely intellectual but an
emotional, whole-body experience, integrating the sensible and intelligible. Architecture
provided, physically and metaphorically, a model conducive to this integration. Entrance into
thought was perceived to be equally physical and mental, opening a channel between the eye
of the mind and the corporeal senses. The spatial character of architectural mnemonicsthat
one would "perambulate" cloisters and palaces in the mind, composing narratives with the
ornaments and images arrayed thereinreflects a phenomenological dimension to thought
that may be quite foreign to a modern-day observer.
In Federico's day, the humanist archaeology of classical texts and architectural ruins 18
nourished the imaginations of patrons and architects with examples of public and private
spaces by which to "enter into thought." Along with the contemplative eddies in the medieval
cathedral,30 intimate domestic settings modeled after the ancient Roman exedra and
cubiculumdescribed by Vitruvius and Pliny and unearthed in the 1470sprovided prosthetic
armatures for thought. Their spatial arrangements and ornament prepared a quattrocento
mind with visual tropes that literally fed the imagination with materials for cogitation. In the
compositions of the studioli we find an amalgam of classical and medieval attitudes toward
cognitive architecture. The practice(s) of cogitation, as we shall see, called on physical settings
that could move an observer, literally and figuratively.
In previous scholarship, there has been difficulty in accounting for certain perspectival 19
illusions in the studioli that engage the observer physically and evade categorical assessment.
These illusions are not merely sleight of hand-eye coordination or propagandistic
demonstrations of patronly magnificentia or technical prowess; fundamentally, they evoke an
ambience of wonder ideal for stimulating the mind and, in particular, the memory. As

Aristotle notes in his discussion of education in Politics, a favorite of Federico's, "to have the
habit of feeling delight (or distress) in things that are like reality is near to having the same
disposition toward reality itself."31 On first reading, we might interpret the realism of the
studioli "contents" as an expression of a desire to imitate reality as an achievement unto itself.
However, considered in light of architectural mnemonics, the veracity of imagery would have
facilitated the rehearsal of appropriate thoughts and habits, like just and prudent leadership,
to be enacted in "reality itself." Further distillation of works such as the studioli, then, calls for
a mode of inquiry that delves beyond iconographic groundwork to engage their densely
layered imagery and the emotional impact of their compositions. A key to the workings of the
studioli is offered through a better understanding of the workings of the memory in the
quattrocento mind.
Until well into the Renaissance, the memory was fashioned as a storage place (literally, an ark) 20
for experience and as an engine for its interpretation and reconstitution. "You were trained to
furnish the rooms of the mind," Carruthers observes, "because you cannot think if you do not
have something to think with."32 Demonstration of a well-furnished memory, on the
battlefield or in matters of diplomacy, conveyed one's capacity for crafting thought.
Subsequently, the perception that we make our own thoughts, from any and all available
materials, has gradually given way to the more passive notion that thoughts are things we
simply have.
Fig. 3.6. Collared squirrel, Urbino Fig. 3.7. Crane, Gubbio studiolo.
studiolo. Extended Caption 3
Extended Caption 3
How did Federico and his colleagues fabricate their thoughts? Freshly imbued with Greek and 21
Persian notions of micro- and macrocosm, a quattrocento mind was preoccupied with
concrete and metaphoric implications of harmoniaimodes of fastening that supplied
architectural, musical, and humoral connotations. From Homer through Hippocrates, a
properly built boat and a virtuous human had been considered to be "well balanced" in
construction.33
Healthful symmetry was the objective for politics as well. Themes of reconciliation and 22
universal harmony, such as Alberti's concinnitas and Cusa's coincidentia oppositorum, were
counterposed to a litany of crises in faith, politics, and scholarship. The decay of Byzantium
brought to Italy an influx of such Greek scholars as Argyropoulos, Cardinal Bessarion, and
George of Trebisond (to name only a few), whose direct familiarity with Hippocrates, Plato,
Plotinus, Euclid, Ptolemy, and the Corpus hermeticum introduced a fresh set of
considerations for Western thought. The meeting of oriental and occidental wisdom
problematized (and impregnated) the mind with new possibilities, from meditation and health
to accounting, the architecture of time, and the cosmos.

In Ptolemy's encomium at Urbino, for example, Federico expresses gratitude to the father of 23
astronomy for his precise measurement of the stars and for imposing lines on the earth.34 The
rediscovery and rapid dissemination of Ptolemy's works on mapping, accompanied by the
flowering of perspective, was closely followed in 1474 by Paolo Toscanelli dal Pozzo's use of a
grid of lines to speculate on a westward passage to the Orient. Soon after, this map provided
the rhetorical equipment necessary for Columbus to persuade his patrons of the plausibility of
such an endeavor.
Even as the earliest seeds of this enterprise were forming, Alberti, Cusa, and Ficino were beset 24
with the challenge of fitting Plato together with Aristotle, pantheism with monotheism,
princely magnificentia with the virtue of Temperance. These were matters addressed
delicately, with great diplomacy. The arrival of Byzantine scholars encouraged a lineage of
Western scholars35 to digest and reincorporate an Eastern heritage into a canon that only
recently, and contentiously, had absorbed Aristotle. The treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, for
example, addressed a broad spectrum of public and private modes of harmonization, from the
revision of the calendar and debates of church and state to manuals for meditation. Likewise,
Alberti's insistence on the importance of music for an architect reflects the ethical sentiments
of Boethius (also depicted at Urbino), who urged that music is concerned with both
speculative truth and morality and that "the soul of the universe is united by musical
concord."36
Misfortune could be cast by the stars or caused by 25

sphere, Urbino studiolo. human fickleness. Alliances could shift with the wind,
Extended Caption 4 leaving all policies "doubtful." In counterpoint to human
frailties and unpredictable fortuna, harmony provided an
ethical matrix for contemplation and worldly action. Mediation, prudence, temperance,
concord, dissimulationthese ideals for human comportment were believed to bind divine
graces to the realm of human affairs. In the face of uncertainty, works of art and architecture
embodied enduring lessons in prudence.
Throughout the quattrocento, the craft of thought used the visible processes and products of 26
material craft as a medium to explain and train the invisible workings of the mind. Metaphors
of architectonic storage and material assembly employed in memory training helped the
individual translate sense impressions into imaginary vessels (wax tablets, change purses,
dovecotes, palaces, cities) that preserved experience and kept it close "at hand."37 Works of
intarsia, for example, are assembled from layers of geometric puzzle-pieces formed according
to their precise locations in a larger schemea process that demands careful planning and
execution. When fitted together, they demonstrate the harmonia of a material craft that
embodies an intellectual tradition of splitting ideas into categorical parts and compositional
units for reassembly.38

As a recombinatorium for ideas, a well-trained memory 27

Fig. 3.9. Exploded axonometric of
provided a speculative mechanism for change. Although assembly of an intarsia panel in the
we tend to imagine the Renaissance humanists to be Gubbio studiolo.
Extended Caption 5
encaged in a closed universe, awaiting the liberating
flights of Columbus and Copernicus, Federico da
Montefeltro's rise from military captain (with questionable birthright) to duke offers an
example of the capacity, through shrewd diplomacy, to seduce fortuna and intervene in one's
own fate. This theme was central to the writings of Baldassare Castiglione on the ideal courtier
and Niccol Machiavelli, who in his treatise on ideal rule, The Prince, surmised that "it may
be true that fortune is the ruler of half our actions, but that she allows the other half or
thereabouts to be governed by us."39 According to Machiavelli, in order to govern this "other
half or thereabouts" appropriately, it was necessary to master fortuneif need be, "to conquer
her by force."40 To ascend within the prevailing social structures and endure the vicissitudes
of quattrocento political life required a balanced and agile characterat once cautious or
impetuous, as the occasion demanded.41
Traditionally, memory training centered on enhancing one's ability to respond judiciously to a 28

given circumstance by keeping a prudent eye cast toward the implications of one's actions.
The "actual past" existed not as an inert body of facts or "information" to be accurately or
inaccurately retrieved but rather as a resource for personal refinement and communal
participation. Duke Federico's biographer Vespasiano da Bisticci expresses a common
sentiment when he describes the past as the "mirror of the present."42 By recollecting the
lessons of the past, one could more precisely prognosticate the future and calibrate one's
actions advantageously in the present. Cultivation of such virtues as Prudence and
Temperance offered a causeway to the heavens through their practical guidance in the ethics
of earthly matters.43 Amid the extreme political uncertainties of the late quattrocento, an
ability to envision the interplay of past, present, and future was acutely significant. Since
building memory was perceived as equivalent to building character, for a prince the
cultivation of memory was vital in preserving the state, one's family, and oneself.
Fig. 3.10. Mirror, Gubbio studiolo. Fig. 3.11. Convex mirror and
Extended Caption 6 surround fabricated by the Maiano
brothers, 1480.
Extended Caption 6
The studioli of the Montefeltro may be seen as open manuals for navigating the intricacies of 29
the late Italian quattrocento, providing the duke and his son with treasuries for personal
experience, sources of willpower, and templates for action. At Urbino, Federico, his advisers,
and his craftsmen fabricated an engine for governance and diplomacy, distilling the

influences, qualities, and rewards of a leader recognized for his prudence in the field of action
and in the meting of civil justice. In the Gubbio studiolo, we find an engine for a young
prince's education,44 an incubator for the duke that Guidobaldo was, it was hoped, to become.

Notes
Note 1: Alberti dedicated the Italian translation of the treatise, Delle pittura, to his friend
Brunelleschi.
Note 2: Alberti and Piero had known one another for many years; Sigismondo Malatesta
commissioned both for various projects in the 1450s, and they were in the Roman humanists' circles
in the late 1450s. More specific to the Urbino connection, Alberti visited Urbino in 1464, and Piero
entered the duke's patronage in 1469.
Note 3: Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 81.
Note 4: Vasari, On Technique, 305.
Note 5: Manetti, Fat Woodworker. In this story, set in 1409, we find that Manetto had worked in
the bottega of Maestro Pellegrino in Via Terma. "Most believe that the victim [of the prank] was
Manetto di Jacopo Ammannatini (d. 1450) called Manetto of Florence, a worker in intarsia, since the
details of his life closely match those of the story" (xvi). According to the translators, Giorgio Vasari
obtained most of his biographical information about Brunelleschi through the writings of Antonio
Manetti (unrelated to the intarsist), whose interests in mathematics, astrology, and geography
endeared him to Marsilio Ficino and the Platonic Academy, as well as to Paolo Uccello and Paolo
Toscanelli.
Note 6: Vasari, On Technique, 263.
Note 7: A detailed analysis of the practice of intarsia and the fabrication of the studioli intarsie in
particular is offered by Wilmering, Gubbio Studiolo, 2:105.
Note 8: Vasari, On Technique, 262. Wilmering counters Vasari concerning Benedetto's career
(Gubbio Studiolo, 2:106).
Note 9: Vespasiano da Bisticci underscores the duke's keen interest in mathematics and
architecture. This emphasis, is not however, at the expense of (or at odds with) his interest in the
verbal arts. "Federigo, Duke of Urbino," in Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasiano Memoirs, 84114.
Note 10: "La Virt dell'architettura fundata in l'arte dell'aritmetica e geometria, che sono delle sette
arti liberali, e delle principali, perch sono in primo grado certitudinis, ed l'arte di gran scienza e di
grande ingegno, e da noi molto estimata e apprezzata." See Chambers, Patrons and Artists, 165. Also
Wittkower, Architectural Principles, 67n2.
Note 11: Training in the verbal arts commenced at age six or seven. Guidobaldo was born in 1472,
and the Gubbio studiolo was constructed between 1476 and 1483 (according to Olga Raggio, between
1480 and 1483).
Note 12: Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, 298.
Note 13: Vituperation (or psogos), an invective that discredits an adversary, is another of the
progymnasmata exercises. In general, letter writing was considered a significant practice of rhetoric.
A well-stocked Renaissance library such as Federico's included letters composed by classical authors
and Church Fathers as templates for correspondence. See Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its
Sources, 224.
Note 14: In his discussion of leisure, play, and education in Politics (1338a37), Aristotle notes:
"There are some useful things, too, in which the young must be educated, not only because they are
useful (for example they must learn reading and writing), but also because they are often the means
to learning yet further subjects . . . to be constantly asking 'what is the use of it?' is unbecoming to
those of broad vision and unworthy of free men." Medieval and Renaissance treatises on education
offered unceasing variations on the number and nature of these arts. Within the court of Urbino,
Luca Pacioli offers various categories for knowledge in his De divina proportione. See Prez-Gmez,
"Glass Architecture of Fra Luca Pacioli."

Note 15: For a discussion of the complementarity of rhetorical "figures" of speech and
mathematical-geometrical figures during the Renaissance, see Saiber, "Giordano Bruno's Geometry
of Language," chap. 1. In particular: "It is worth observing that the tropes refer to the same spatial
concept: hyperbole refers to something that is thrown beyond or is in excess; parable to something
that is thrown alongside or is comparable to; and ellipsis to something that is left out, or is in deficit.
Both geometry and rhetoric are arts of demonstration and persuasion. They are figurative languages,
nomenclatures informed by shape and space" (25).
Note 16: Calcidius' translation of the Timaeus was present in the ducal library (I.V. #224). The
popularity of Plato in the 1470s is due in great part to the efforts of Marsilio Ficino and the Platonic
Academy in Florence. In January 1482, nine months before Federico's death, Ficino dedicated several
volumes of his letters and writings to the duke, including commentaries on Plato and his own
translation of the Corpus hermeticum. See Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 58.
Note 17: In previous studies of the studioli, the subject of memory and its influence on the late
quattrocento mind (and architecture) does not appear as a topic or as an indexical term for cross-
reference.
Note 18: Thornton, Italian Renaissance Interior, 17.
Note 19: According to Bayerle and Carruthers, who consider this work "an important representative
of the transmission of medieval memory techniques to the Renaissance," Jacobus Publicius's treatise
was the first Ars memoriae to be printed, by Erhard Ratdolt in Venice, in 1482. It was frequently
printed thereafter (Cologne, 1483; Venice, 1485 and 1490; Augsburg, 1490) and directly influenced
memory treatises of the following century, namely Johannes Romberch's Congestorium artificiose
memorie (1533). I thank Mary Carruthers for providing an unpublished version of this translation.
Note 20: The thematic material used for memory training also provided commonplace subject
matter for works of art produced for centers as distant as Urbino, Flanders, and Spain. Virgil and his
Aeneid, a mnemonic primer, provided imagery for the studioli intarsie, and tapestries woven for
Federico by Jean Grenier of Tournai, which were produced in the 1470s. Another contemporary
tapestry, produced in Tournai for the cathedral of Toledo, Spain, refers to Virgil's wisdom regarding
astrology. See Kemp, "Editorial Notes" for Circa 1492, item 111, pp. 21415.
Note 21: Definitions of time and memory have tended to focus on their evasive character. Writing in
the 13th century, the monk Bonus Socius describes the use of memory as "the same as placing
something in a little bag containing holes. It falls out at once." Concerning time, Marsilio Ficino
notes: "Time is by nature something fluid and slippery. Its condition is liquid in the sense that if you
confine it in a narrow place, you suddenly lose it. Its forces flow away and quickly scatter. If you
compress water into a sponge and squeeze it, you immediately lose it. If you give it more room you
will retain it." From the letter "What Is Necessary for Composure in Life and for Tranquility of the
Soul." See Ficino, Book of Life, 190.
Note 22: Yates, "Architecture and the Art of Memory," 12.
Note 23: Luria, Mind of a Mnemonist.
Note 24: During a workshop for the Department of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at New York
University, fall 2000.
Note 25: Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 118.
Note 26: Prez-Gmez and Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, 262,
caption 2.57.
Note 27: In his biography of the duke, Vespasiano underscores Federico's prudence and foresight on
the battlefield, in political negotiations, and in matters of civil justice.
Note 28: Summers, Judgment of Sense, 1987, 22.

Note 29: Cicero De inventione 2.53.160. A similar phrase is found in the Ad herennium, a popular
treatise on oration traditionally attributed to Cicero, a mistake that is evident in the Indice Vecchio
(I.V. #445). In it, prudence is described as an "intelligence capable, by a certain judicious method, of
distinguishing good and bad; likewise the knowledge of an art is called Wisdom; and again, a well-
furnished memory and experience in diverse matters is termed Wisdom." Ad herennium 3.2.3. See
also Carruthers, Book of Memory, 176.
Note 30: Carruthers describes the cathedral as an "engine for prayer" (Craft of Thought, 179, 263).
Note 31: Aristotle Politics 1340a18.
Note 32: Carruthers, "City in Our Minds," 11. "There is no thinking, only thinking with." Rose,
"Micro-Speculum."
Note 33: Maria Karvouni notes: "The Homeric harmoniesthe means of fastening a structure, a
human body, or even a human relationshipgradually became the Platonic (and Pythagorean)
harmonies, the metaphorical means of 'binding' the movements of a soul or the movements of the
stars reflected by the soul. Plato's harmonies also have musical connotations, yet one should
remember that even musical harmonies depend on some kind of fastening: for example, on the
tuning of the strings of the musical instrument. Harmony is one of those wonderful words that, in
the Greek mind, could assume simultaneously a tectonic, musical, and abstract (mathematical)
character. At the same time, harmony is what keeps the human body together and guarantees its
good 'tuning' and 'fitting.' . . . In Phaedo, Plato talks about the human body as being held in tension
and in tune like a musical instrument" (Karvouni, "Demas," 116). Leonardo Aretino's translation of
Plato's Phaedo is I.V. #223 in the ducal library.
Note 34: "Cl[audio] Ptolomaeo Alexandrino, ob certam astrorum dimensionem, inductasq[ue] orbi
terrarum lineas, vigiliis laboriq[ue] aeterno Fed[ericus] dedit." (To Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria,
for his precise measurement of the stars, and because he imposed lines on the earth, for his
observations and everlasting toil Federico gave this.) Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 93.
Note 35: A direct line may be drawn, for example, from Platina (if not from Vittorino da Feltre and
Guarino da Verona before) through Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, Pietro Bembo, and Giulio Camillo.
Note 36: Alberti, Art of Building, 9.57. Levenson, Measure for Measure, 43. Concord was also
perceived a binding force for human relationships. Castiglione describes the presence of the duchess
of Urbino (Guidobaldo's wife, Elisabetta) at evening festivities as "a chain that held us all linked in
love, so that never was concord of will or cordial love between brothers greater than that which here
was between us all." Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 11.
Note 37: To expand storage capacity for the accumulation of experiences, mnemonic vessels become
increasingly complex, historically; elementary images, such as dovecotes, could be incorporated into
more advanced images, such as a memory palace. For example, one might well have perched a
dovecote on the roof of a palace located in a city composed of streets compiled from the various cities
one had experienced during one's life. In the 16th century, Giordano Bruno was said to have
constructed a mnemonic city in which he had placed, side by side, entire streets he had encountered
in Paris and London.
Note 38: Intarsia is akin to mosaic in its painstaking assembly of bits according to a larger
composition. The historic parallels of splitting and joining in mental and material craft is deeply
embedded in Western languages. Karvouni notes: "Tectonics [and techne] deals with the arrangement
of 'distinct units' that the tecton [Homer's shipbuilder/housebuilder] first shapes with his tools and
then places and joins together. This dual, seemingly antithetical, activity is what defines tectonics.
Since tectonics is literally at the root of architecture (archi-tektonike), this dual mode of operation is
also at the core of architecture." Karvouni, "Demas," 106.
Note 39: Machiavelli, The Prince, 131.
Note 40: The full passage reads: "It is better to be impetuous than cautious, for fortune is a woman,
and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force." Machiavelli, The Prince, 134.

Note 41: "One sees a certain prince to-day fortunate and to-morrow ruined, without seeing that he
has changed in character or otherwise. [With] fortune varying and men remaining fixed in their ways,
they are successful so long as these ways conform to circumstances, but when they are opposed then
they are unsuccessful." Machiavelli, The Prince, 131, 134.
Note 43: The phrase virtutibus itur ad astra (with virtue one scales the stars) is prominently
displayed in the studiolo intarsia at Urbino. The notion of virt is discussed further in chapter 4.
Note 44: This research confirms Olga Raggio's suggestion "that the [Gubbio] studiolo itself may
have been conceived for Guidobaldo in order to stress the importance that a liberal arts curriculum
was to have in his education." However, the studioli not only represented the importance of a liberal
arts education; they quite literally embodied its precepts. See Raggio and Wilmering, Liberal Arts
Studiolo, 33.

CHAPTER FOUR
Memory and Quattrocento Learning: The Gubbio Studiolo

as a Florilegium for Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
As Plato says, we are born not only for ourselves, but also for our country and for
our successors. So those people appear to be very fortunate, who are endowed
with great talent and, after they die, are remembered and desired not only by
their immediate family, but also by their descendants and successors. After all,
what is more distinguished, what more worthy of glory, praise, and admiration,
than man's ability to surpass other living things in excellence of nature and
ability, to exceed not only mortals, but even nature itself, by study and vigilance
of mind and by dint of memory?
Jacobus Publicius, Art of Memory, 11
4.1 The Humanist Education of a Quattrocento Prince
In 1431, the Venetian composer, poet, and politician 1

Fig. 4.1. Double Portrait of Federico
and Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. Leonardo Giustiniani1 prepared a small treatise on
Extended Caption 7 memory, the Regulae artificialis memoriae, to
complement his son's humanist training in rhetoric.
Aside from its usefulness in private and commercial matters, urged Leonardo, a well-trained
memory was essential for the range of oratory skills required to speak before the various
organs of the Venetian government. Reflecting on his experience as capo (head) of the Council
of Ten, Giustiniani emphasized: "There is no kind of case, no type, no topic, finally no precept
of the entire art [of rhetoric] in which I must not be proficient, unless I wish to fail myself."2
In a republic such as Venice, where debate and a complex process of deliberation fueled 2
government, an appreciation for mnemonic prowess and rhetorical dexterity would be
natural.3 What relevance, though, might oration (and memory) have held for Duke Federico
da Montefeltro or his son, Guidobaldo? Vespasiano's biography offers several clues.
As part of his responsibility to uphold civil law, Federico was steeped in judicial (or "forensic") 3
oratory, in which evidence from past events is examined to arrive at a just ruling. In these
matters, notes Vespasiano, Federico "gave himself entirely to his state that the people might
be content, and one of the greatest of his merits was that when he heard of a quarrel he would
send for the parties, and give his wits no rest till peace should be made."4 To help him arrive
at sound judgments, the duke employed the counsel of a "reader," such as Maestro Lazzaro,
with whom he disputed the finer points of such works as Aristotle's Ethics.5 Although
Vespasiano mentions Lazzaro as evidence of the duke's continuing education, interlocutors
were commonly used for dialectical inquiry. Walter Ong notes that for cultures predominantly
oral in their transmission of knowledge, such as quattrocento Italy, dialogue is essential to

Architecture and Memory Chapter Four Robert Kirkbride
sustain the logical analysis of complex problems.6 Moreover, since "Maestro" was a common
salutation for a friar, Lazzaro could well have offered moral and spiritual counsel for
Federico's assessments.7
Another branch of rhetoric, deliberative oratory, was central to Federico's success as a military 4
captain and to his rise in Italian politics. In deliberative rhetoric, which focused on the future
ramifications of policy, one's objective was to exhort or dissuade a given audience to or from a
particular end. Regarding this skill, Machiavelli observed that "a prince who is not wise will
never have united councils and will not be able to bring them to unanimity for himself . . .
wise counsels, from whoever they come, must necessarily be due to the prudence of the
prince, and not the prudence of the prince to the good counsels received."8 Vespasiano
recounts such a demonstration when, in 1467, Federico led the undermanned forces of the
Italic League against the Venetian army. Addressing the shortage of their numbers, Federico
"assembled the commissaries and the leaders of the army of the League to forecast the plans
of the enemy, and what they themselves ought to do." Various members of the assembly
maintained that they should wait for reinforcements. Having learned through reconnaissance
that there were none, Federico advised his allies that they should not wait and attack the foe
in his camp. "When the leaders saw what the Duke's will was, and listened to the weighty and
unanswerable arguments he advanced, they replied that they were satisfied with his reasons,
that they knew well in following his advice, and that they were ready, like him, to devote their
lives to the saving of the army of the League."9
Like Giustiniani's son Bernardo,10 Federico was introduced early to the third branch of 5
rhetoric, epideictic recitation, which cultivates skills in public speaking. Meaning "fit for
display," epideictic oratory was demonstrated in ceremonial occasions such as weddings and
funerals and often marked a "coming out" of sorts for youths whose foundational training
required that they memorize and publicly recite passages of a renowned author (typically
Virgil).11 At age four, Guidobaldo's mother, Battista Sforza, delivered a Latin oration in
public.12 By age eleven, Federico had impressed the Venetian Senate and Doge Francesco
Foscari with a recitation during his stay in the city as a protected hostage, from February 1433
to 1434.
In May 1434, a plague prompted Federico's relocation 6

Fig. 4.2. The ducal library's ceiling
at Urbino. from Venice to Mantova, where he attended the
humanist academy of Vittorino da Feltre, previously the
chair of rhetoric at the University of Padova. In addition to his academic studies, Federico
received instruction in arms with Gianfrancesco Gonzaga and was knighted by the Holy
Roman Emperor Sigismondo, who was traveling to Rome to meet with Pope Eugenius IV. Two
years later, Federico received formal training as a condottiere under Milan's captain general,
the shrewd tactician Niccol Piccinino.

Federico reveled in disputation, aiming to learn "some 7

Fig. 4.3. Ottaviano degli Ubaldini
new thing each day."13 Like Giustiniani, Montefeltro and Federico da Montefeltro.
carried worldly responsibilities, and balance was difficult
to maintain, as Patricia Labalme observes, between "otium and negotium, the leisure filled
with learning and the fulfillment of this learning in the activities incumbent upon a
[prince]."14 To prepare their sons for this challenge, Leonardo and Federico each bequeathed
a florilegium. For Bernardo, Giustiniani composed a small memory treatise with rules for
crafting an inward space for thought. For Guidobaldo, Federico furnished physical chambers
for contemplation.
Pedagogically, a florilegium enabled students to envision memory as a garden, carefully 8

plotted for seeds and cuttings collected from other exemplary lives and works. By thoughtful
ruminating on their flowers, committing them to memory, pupils assimilated the wisdom of
their predecessors, transforming their forbears' words into their own.15 Conducting this
wisdom through one's own life revealed the unique inner genius (ingenium) of one's character.
According to contemporaries, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro 9

Fig. 4.4. Guidobaldo da
Montefeltro. possessed an extraordinary intelligence (Pietro Bembo
described it as "superhuman")16 cultivated by an
education that continued, like his father's, into adulthood. As a youth, he was fluent in Greek
and could read numerous manuscripts in the ducal library that Federico, who received a basic
training in Greek grammar, could not.17 Notably, Guidobaldo was admired for his
"remarkable powers of memory," which, as James Dennistoun relates, "by judicious and
habitual exercise were extended with advancing manhood."18 Vespasiano admired the duke's
mnemonic skill at an early stage in its development: "He [Guidobaldo] had a marvellous
memory, of which I can give numerous examples; for once, when Signor Ottaviano put
Ptolemy before him, he knew how to point out all the regions of the Earth so that, when he
was asked for any place or district, he found it at once and knew the distance of one place from
another. The Duke possessed a Bible with historical comments, the events of each book being
narrated, and there was no name or place that the young prince did not know, even the
unfamiliar names in Hebrew."19 It is impossible, of course, to determine how much
Vespasiano and Bembo may have rhetorically amplified Guidobaldo's talents; nonetheless, the
importance bestowed on mnemonic prowess is emphatic. In 1450, Bishop Aeneas Silvius
Piccolomini (who as Pope Pius II became one of Federico's most influential patrons) wrote:
"When . . . speech is considered as an art, we find that it is the function of grammar to order
its expression; of dialectic to give it point; of rhetoric to illustrate it; of philosophy to perfect
it. But before entering upon this in detail we must first insist upon the overwhelming
importance of memory, which is in truth the first condition of capacity for letters. A boy
should learn without effort, retain with accuracy, and reproduce easily. Rightly is memory
called 'the nursing mother of learning.'" 20

Piccolomini's personification of memory as a "nursing mother" is curious, especially 10

considered alongside the text from the Gubbio studiolo,21 which refers its studious reader to a
"Venerable Mother" (Venerande Matris). Previous interpretations of Veterani's distych22 have
assumed that Matris, like the terms parent and foster mother found elsewhere in the passage,
refers to the goddesses depicted in the Liberal Arts portraits. Although parentis clearly does
refer to these "parental" figures (to whom Guidobaldo and Federico genuflect), Piccolomini's
comment suggests that Venerable Motherand possibly Foster Mother as wellalludes
instead to Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory.23 A similar comment by Publicius
supports this observation: "Our poets have referred to her [Memory/Mnemosyne] as the
universal parent and most faithful preserver of all faculties and arts worthy of divine and
human study, as the basis and glory of divine and human genius, and even as the mother of
the muses."24
References to memory and the muses enlace the Montefeltro studioli. Investigation of such 11
allusions allows us to better appreciate the workings of a quattrocento mind and the
complementary roles of architecture and memory in its formation. The basic ingredient of
humanist scholarship, memorization by heart, was steeped in the ancient tradition of
architectural mnemonics,25 a practice (or practices) that called for the careful arrangement of
imagesrepresenting ideas and argumentsin rooms, palaces, gardens, and cities
constructed in the mind. For this training, architecture and its ornament offered a ductile
medium in forming personal character and communal ethics. Labalme observes that for
Federico and Guidobaldo, Leonardo and Bernardo, "an oration was the demonstration of
reason in politics, and an oratio was to ratio as convivere was to vivere."26 As a student
fashioned an "ark" for memory within the heart, he or she refined an ability to communicate
with and live among others. Building on this tradition, Christian theologians conceived sancta
memoria, a medieval practice of meditation in which mechanisms and processes of
architectural construction figured as metaphors for spiritual edification. However, before
invisible palaces and cities could be constructed, or the soul "lifted" in divine contemplation,
it was necessary to secure proper foundations. Since young students are not yet prepared to
reason, as Aristotle and Castiglione assert, they must first receive training in appropriate
mental and physical habits.
4.2 On Right Habits
Gaspar: I should like to know [if the prince's mind] ought to be first imbued and
implanted with the virtues through the reason and intelligence or through
practice.
Ottaviano: Care must be taken of the body earlier than of the soul, and of
appetite earlier than of reason. . . . We ought, therefore, first to teach through
habit, which is able to govern the as yet unreasoning appetites and to direct them
toward the good by means of that fair use; next we ought to establish them
through the understanding, which although it shows its light more tardily, still

furnishes a mode of making the virtues more perfectly fruitful to one whose
mind is well trained by practice.
Baldassare Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 265
If you were caught slouching at the Academy of Ca' 12

Fig. 4.5. Vittorino da Feltre,
Federico's teacher, among the Zoiosa,27 Vittorino da Feltre would draw a chalk circle
illustrious men in the Urbino around your feet and, as a lesson to your classmates,
studiolo.
command you to assume the physical posture
appropriate to a young scholar. You would then be
instructed to remain motionless for a specified time. Although this exercise of authority by da
Feltrebestowed on him by his patron, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, marquess of Mantovamay
appear somewhat obtuse, it shows how strongly humanist educators believed that the outward
expressions of bodily and social habits demonstrated the mind's workings.
Fig. 4.6. Section of human head Fig. 4.7. Diagram of human mind
after Leonardo. after Galen.
Extended Caption 8 Extended Caption 8
Fig. 4.8. Diagram of human mind Fig. 4.9. Diagram of human mind
after Lokhorst and Kaitaro's model after Avicenna.
of Costa ben Luca. Extended Caption 8
Extended Caption 8
Fig. 4.10. Diagram of the human

mind.
Extended Caption 8
Founded in Mantova by da Feltre in 1423, Ca' Zoiosa was conceived as a setting in which to 13
instill the Platonic principles of gymnastics for the body and music for the mind to repair and
refine the constitutions of the flabby, phlegmatic Prince Ludovico Gonzaga and his nervous
brother, Carlo.28 The academy soon became an educational center for the future ruling elite of
quattrocento Italy. As compared with the sedentary lives led by pupils of the monastic orders,
da Feltre directed Ca' Zoiosa as a gymnasium, incorporating vigorous exercise with a stringent
diet and rigorous training in letters, numbers, and the memory.29 Although Vittorino taught
in a Socratic manner, leaving no writings of his own for posterity, he possessed a fine library
that was openly available to his students.30
Like Aristotle, da Feltre's objective for the academy was to produce not scholars but complete 14
citizens of a character refined by moderation and grace. He urged: "Not everyone is obliged to
excel in philosophy, medicine, or the law, nor are all equally favored by nature: but all are
destined to live in society and to practice virtue."31 Although the humanist education at Ca'
Zoiosa included grammar (Latin and Greek), dialectics and rhetoric, mathematics, and

philosophy, it was above all a practical education designed to foster diplomatic skills in future
leaders. In this context the cultivation of elegance, the capacity to articulate connections with
grace, must be distinguished from eloquence. Whereas eloquence is traditionally associated
with the art of rhetoric as a "practice . . . of expressing thought with fluency, force, and
appropriateness so as to appeal to the reason or move the feelings," the catchword of this
phrase is appropriateness.32 Da Feltre warns: "There is . . . nothing that may eventually do
greater harm to a city than eloquence, for . . . when it is possessed by evil men, they may use it
to stir up trouble and to corrupt public manners."33
To guard against such discordant behavior, da Feltre and his colleagues sought to establish 15
the feeling of right action in their students by inculcating "right habits" in body and mind.34
"Since it is obvious," Aristotle writes in Politics, "that education by habit-forming must
precede education by reasoned instruction, and that education of the body must precede that
of the intellect, it is clear that we must subject our children to gymnastics and to physical
training; the former produces a certain condition of the body, the latter its actions."35
Following Pier Paolo Vergerius, who urged that students should be trained in feats of courage
and endurance, Piccolomini recommends that instructors prepare their students for hardship,
implanting a certain "hardness" of character capable of rejecting excessive sleep and other
indulgences (such as soft beds and silk underclothing) that were believed to enervate body and
mind.36 Regarding diet, he continues, since "the aim of eating is to strengthen the frame," one
should avoid cakes and sweets, as well as small birds or eels, "which are for the delicate and
weakly." Although one should generally refuse that food which "needlessly taxes digestion and
so impairs mental activity," a young studentparticularly a young condottiere such as
Guidobaldocould not be permitted to develop a finicky palate. Piccolomini warns that a boy
who is destined to face life "in the camp or in the forest, should so discipline his appetite that
he may eat even beef."37
At Ca' Zoiosa, Vittorino followed the advice of Aristotle 16

Fig. 4.11. Instrumental
demonstration of rectitude. and Plato, encouraging gymnastics, music, and dancing
Extended Caption 9 as aids to the inner harmony of the soul and its corporeal
expression.38 Humanists considered music essential to
education: Vergerius notes that the ancient Greeks had denied the title of "educated" to
anyone who could not sing or play a musical instrument.39 Castiglione concurs, adding that
music induces a "fresh and good habit of mind and an habitual tendency to virtue, which
renders the soul more capable of happiness, just as bodily exercise renders the body more
robust."40 Music, like dance, was enthusiastically sponsored by Federico and Guidobaldo.41
Grace in expression was refined by grammar, which 17

Fig. 4.12. Perspectival "butterfly,"
educators considered the foundation of knowledge. after missing figure at Gubbio
Unless grammar and fluid enunciation were learned studiolo.
Extended Caption 10
thoroughly, according to Battista Guarino, one's
education was considered "a house built on treacherous

ground."42 In a letter written in 1405 to Count Guidantonio da Montefeltro regarding the

education of his sister Battista,43 Leonardo Bruni states: "unless this solid basis [of Latin] be
secured it is useless to attempt to rear an enduring edifice."44 Commenced at age six or seven,
grammar trained a student in the rudiments of language while refining habits of public
presentation. Piccolomini emphasizes: "Too much importance can hardly be attached to right
bearing and gesture. Childish habits of playing with the lips and features should be early
controlled. A boy should be taught to hold his head erect, to look straight and fearlessly before
him, and to bear himself with dignity, whether walking, standing, or sitting."45 Grammar also
exercised the memory and introduced the student to the works of classical authors by a
process described by Iris Origo:
In the grammar lesson the master would dictate the list of words to be learned
by heart and their declensions, commenting on any grammatical difficulty as it
arose. When the time came for reading the Greek or Latin text itself, the master
would first read a passage aloud, explaining and commenting, followed by each
pupil reading the same passage in turn, until not only his translation but his
enunciation and expression were considered perfect. Finally each passage was
learned by heart. Every child was taught to read aloud agreeably and clearly, "not
muttering in his teeth," and without uncouth gestures or making faces.46
While learning the rudiments of epideictic presentation in a "parrot-like" manner, a student

committed exemplary passages of poetry and literature to memory.
Exercises in the progymnasmata sharpened elocution, 18

Fig. 4.13. Papagalli and mechanical
clock, Urbino studiolo. fortifying the student's memory with ennobling passages
Extended Caption 11 of poetry and literature like those arrayed in the studioli.
At Gubbio, the extended quotation of Virgil's Aeneid
offered Guidobaldo a meditation on human mortality and the immortality of human valor. A
similar message is conveyed at Urbino by the maxim "virtutibus itur ad astra" (with virtue,
man scales the stars), whose elaboration on Virgil furnished the young prince with an example
of rhetorical gnome.47 Inches away we find "Hony soit qui mal y pense" (evil be to him who
evil thinks), a phrase that encircles the Order of the Garter in both studioli. Additionally, the
encomia inscribed in the Urbino portraits provided exemplary ingredients for epideictic
oration.48
In spite of the sobering tenor of "uprightness" in 19

Fig. 4.14. Detail of north wall,
humanist pedagogical writings, the techniques practiced Urbino studiolo.
in schools such as Ca' Zoiosa, especially with younger
students, are more accurately characterized as jocoserious. To establish an enjoyment of
learning alongside the procurement of right habits, teachers devised educational games for
their students. For example, colored letter cards (the quattrocento equivalent of "flash cards")
introduced the youngest to the alphabet and assisted in the instruction of grammar. In the
dedicatory preface to On Caring for the Health of Students, dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici,
Marsilio Ficino urges: "Our intention is to help with physical strength those who are weak.

This must not be done in a heavy, serious style, but free and joyful. . . . For Bacchus heals,
perhaps even more healthfully, with some of his nourishing wine and his happy carefreeness,
than Apollo does with his herbs and charms."49 Dora Thornton has detailed how "reading
aloud and studying could flow into other, more obviously sociable activities," such as singing
and dancing. The poet Angelo Poliziano, a former student of Ficino's who tutored Lorenzo de'
Medici's son, Piero, describes such an event in a letter: "At San Miniato yesterday evening we
began to read a little Saint Augustine. And this at last turned into making music, leaping up
and polishing a certain model of dancing practiced here."50
Educational games, steeped in ancient sources and Christian mores, established a common 20
figural language among quattrocento and cinquecento courts, fueling such forms of
entertainment as the Game of Emblems mentioned by Castiglione at the outset of The Book of
the Courtier.51 In a tradition extending to Horace and Plutarch, painting had been referred to
as mute poetry (muta poesis) whereas poets were seen to produce pictures that speak (pictura
loquens). The commonplace interplay of verbal and visual figures is transparently expressed
in Castiglione's dissimulating description of his own treatise as "not by the hand of Raphael or
Michelangelo, but of a humble painter, who knows only how to trace the chief lines, and
cannot adorn truth with bright colouring, or by perspective art make that which is not seem to
be."52
Fig. 4.15. Gramatica XXI after Fig. 4.16. Late quattrocento

traditional Tarocchi di Mantegna. emblems worn with armor.
Another telling example of this interplay is found in the 21

Fig. 4.17. Ingenioq cabinet, Gubbio
studiolo. northeast corner of the Gubbio studiolo, in the cabinet of
Extended Caption 13 measuring devices surmounted by the word INGENIOQ.
Defined as natural talent or "prerational" genius,
ingenium was held in contrast to the wisdom gained from practice and experience, and
considered a divine stamp on the soul delivered at the instant of one's birth. Innate talent was
as mysterious to the quattrocento as it was for Vitruvius, who describes it as "hidden in the
breast."53 Ficino reminds his readers of Aquinas's claim in Contra gentiles that "something in
our bodies is imprinted by the heavenly bodies, whose gift we can then use to decide what is
good, even if we do not know its reason or purpose."54 By this heavenly aspect, one person
might be a soldier gifted in conquering, a farmer in planting, or a doctor in healing. A teacher's
methods were tuned to reveal and cultivate the unique character hidden within each student
while impressing those habits of uprightness that would guide his or her ingenium to the
common good. Instruments of the architect assisted in this process, supplying da Feltre and
his colleagues with metaphors of justice and moral rectitude. Castiglione writes:
The prince ought not only to be good, but also to make others good, like that
square used by architects, which not only is straight and true itself, but also

makes straight and true all things to which it is applied. And a very great proof
that the prince is good is when his people are good, because the prince's life is
law and preceptress to his subjects, and upon his behaviour all the others must
needs depend. . . . Hence if the prince would perform these duties rightly, he
must devote every study and diligence to wisdom; then he must set before
himself and follow steadfastly in everything the law of reason (unwritten on
paper or metal, but graven upon his own mind), to the end that it may be not
only familiar to him, but ingrained in him.55
What makes one person "quick" and another "slow"? Traditionally, memorization was 22
considered an active exercise of the intellect:56 mnemonic torpor was explained
physiologically and considered rectifiable by natural and artificial procedures.57 Costa ben
Luca attributed mental quickness to the speed with which one could raise and lower the
vermis, redirecting the flow of spirits among the chambers in the brain: "it is slower in some,
which causes a slow memory and slow responses in those who have to think hard."58 Ibn al-
Jazzar (by way of Constantinus Africanus) concurred: "with some people [pneuma] goes fast
and because of that these people are sharp-witted and quick at repartee."59 If the psychical
pneuma is too cold, Publicius adds, it cannot cross over to the posterior ventricle, thus
rendering the memory "dull and languid."60
To compensate for such deficiencies, doctors and educators recommended a broad range of 23
activities and elixirs. Good posture and exercise, Piccolomini urges, "not only cultivates grace
of attitude, but secures the healthy play of our bodily organs and establishes the
constitution."61 Uprightness in elocution was not a matter of aesthetic pretense but a
physiological condition allowing for an unhampered flow of spirits throughout the body,
particularly among the liver, heart, and brain, which according to Avicenna and Galen were
the respective seats of the natural, vital and animal spirits.62 More generally, upright posture
was believed to have enabled humans to observe the heavens and wonder beyond the mortal
coil.
Publicius and Ficino provide numerous recipes and regimens for enhancing the "natural" 24
memory. In addition to exercise, bathing, healthful diet, and moderate sex, Publicius includes
a sneezing powder recommended by Constantinus Africanus that is made from the gall of
crane and elder oil and said to cure lethargy.63 Ficino describes how to use the gifts of
incense, myrrh, and gold leaf to make an elixir for the elderly that will "beyond any doubt,
protect your natural humor from putrefaction." He assures that this medicine fortifies all
three spiritsnatural, vital, and animalwhile sharpening the mind and strengthening
memory.64
How might artificial memory have amplified one's natural capacities? Leonardo Giustiniani 25
characterizes its role in preparing speeches: "In envisioning an oration, or embassy, or proofs,
or opinions, it is necessary that we comprehend briefly not words but the total idea and that
we give to it its own image." If an oration is too long, "it should be divided and each single
part should be excellently shaped and put in a certain place in right order, that is, so that one

thought may follow another without interruption or disturbance."65 Giustiniani adds that
mnemonic images offer a form of shorthand during debate, enabling one cryptically to fashion
a reply "jotted down in the form of a picture," while the opponent was yet speaking. What
were these "pictures" like? Often, they combined visual and verbal figures like the
alphamnemonic ciphers, found in each studiolo, which were recommended by Publicius and
popularized in the subsequent century.66
Fig. 4.18. Alphabetic mnemonics. Fig. 4.19. Cabinet with hunting

Extended Caption 14 horn, Gubbio studiolo.
Extended Caption 14
Fig. 4.20. Tau-shaped tuning key, Fig. 4.21. Cipher of Gramatica.

Gubbio studiolo. Extended Caption 14
Extended Caption 14
Material crafts offered a model for mental habits due to their instruction of natural ability. 26
Similarly, memory building exercised one's mental ingenium, a procedure that Aristotle
considered central in the development of ethical character.67 Mastery of an art, material or
mental, was thus perceived to cultivate prudence, since the accumulation of experience
enhances one's foresight and refinement. As a result, writers such as Hugh of St. Victor seized
on the artsliberal and mechanicalas guides to wisdom, praising the products of human
reason for their infinite variety.68
By a similar reciprocity, da Feltre and his fellow teachers 27

Fig. 4.22. Superimposition of
human and building profiles. believed personal habits to influence social relations and,
by extension, the urbane fabric of buildings and the city.
"Style" in quattrocento architecture was evaluated not by historicizing categories like
"baroque," "modernist," or "postmodern" but rather in terms of appropriateness.
Architectonically and rhetorically, ornamentation offered provisions for thought, supplying
memorable figures of expression.69 While ancient Greeks spoke of sensitivity to kairos, or
"occasion,"70 Romans were keenly aware of decorum, by which the figures and ornaments of
an oration were tuned to a specific audience in a selected setting for a particular occasion.
Recalling Giustiniani's comment about the breadth of rhetorical skills exercised in politics,
sensitivity to kairos and decorum reflected two symbiotically related humanistic objectives: to
possess a copiously stocked memory and an ability to convey its store to an audience in a
fitting manner. In his letter to Guidantonio da Montefeltro, Leonardo Bruni emphasizes that
the desire to accumulate knowledge and experience must be matched by an ability to express
one's learning gracefully in a manner that befits the audience and occasion. Like the clothing

of thoughts and buildings, clothing of the body was also evaluated according to
appropriateness. Vergerius states: "We must have due regard to our dress and its suitability
to time, place, and circumstance."71
Fig. 4.23. The Tempio Fig. 4.24. Sarcophagus of

Malatestiana, Rimini. Sigismondo Malatesta, Tempio
Malatestiana.
The ethos of rhetorical ornamentation directly influenced architectural ornament. In the early 28
1450s, Sigismondo Malatesta commissioned Alberti to transform an existing Franciscan
church in Rimini into a family mausoleum. Centering on the structure's exterior, Alberti's
recommendations included an objection to the patron's desire for round windows in the
cupola. In a 1454 letter written from Rome to Matteo de' Pasti, the project manager, Alberti
bluntly rejects the round windows, noting that one would "never, never find" such an
arrangement among ancient buildings except for temples dedicated to Jupiter and Apollo,
who are "patrons of light."72 Alberti describes the round windows in these temples as
"tonsures" (akin to the oculus of the Roman Pantheon), in which case the openings would be
visible only from the building's interior. Maria Pernis and Laurie Adams suggest that Alberti
criticized the design because he believed that "round windows would identify the Tempio
Malatestiano as a pagan structure rather than as a church remodeled along humanist lines."73
One may be even more precise. Alberti objected to the windows because they did not exhibit
the decorum appropriate to the structure's civic presence and the modes of its inhabitation:
"the design [of openings] should suit the building, whatever its size or shape."74 Significantly,
Alberti does not mention Sigismondo in the letter, referring de' Pasti instead to "Lord
Robert," Malatesta's son. Owing to a downturn in Sigismondo's fortunes, precipitated by his
notoriety and the bitter rivalry with Federico da Montefeltro, the exterior of the Tempio
Malatestiano was never completed. Capitalizing on his neighbor's demise, Federico
subsequently hired many of the stonecutters for the Tempio Malatestiano to work on the
ducal palace at Urbino.
For Federico, who accumulated wealth and prestige 29

fortress and human body. through military campaigns conducted for scholarly
Extended Caption 15 patrons,75 the workings of the body and mind were
complementary, if not interdependent. Architecture, by
its union of practical and theoretical wisdom in military, public, and domestic applications,
provided a powerful metaphor of governance. In Politics, Aristotle states: "The ruler must
have moral virtue in its entirety; for his function is in its fullest sense that of a master-
craftsman [Architekton]."76 Echoing Aristotle (and Alberti), Machiavelli emphasized the
political connotations of architectural prudence: "He who does not lay his foundations [of
governance] beforehand may by great abilities do so afterwards, although with great trouble

to the architect [prince] and danger to the building."77 Recalling the preparations for
Guidobaldo's rule, we see how architectonic metaphors underlay a prince's education and
political visions. Next we consider how they provisioned his thought process.
4.3 On Architecture and Memory
Can it be that the memory is not present to itself in its own right but only by
means of an image of itself?
Augustine, Confessions, 10.15
An examination of the Montefeltro studioli offers insight into the roles that the discipline of 30
architecture played in shaping thought in the late Italian quattrocento. Traditionally,
architecture had provided a concrete organizational model for learning and memory training,
with the practice of constructing buildings serving as a medium and mediator of human
knowledge. As a mode of expression uniquely conducive to rhetorical and material
investigation, architecture enabled the mind to ask itselfeven to conceive of asking itself
such experiential dilemmas as described by Augustine: "The power of the memory is
prodigious, my God, it is a vast, immeasurable sanctuary. Who can plumb its depths? And yet
it is a faculty of my soul. Although it is part of my nature, I cannot understand all that I am.
This means, then, that the mind is too narrow to contain itself entirely. But where is that part
of it which it does not itself contain? How, then, can it be part of it, if it is not contained in it?
I am lost in wonder when I consider this problem. It bewilders me."78 Because of its range of
mental and material procedures, architecture has been historically positioned "between" the
liberal and mechanical arts, twin modes of wisdom often characterized as theory and
practice.79 By its auspicious capacity to embody these twins,80 architecture has offered a
ductile medium for conveying ideas between the imagination and the built environment.
Providing containment through the choreography of figurative skills, verbal and visual,
architecture furnishes the mind with metaphoric vessels and mechanisms by which to
preserve and interpret the materials of experience.81 Augustine relates: "The sky, the earth,
and the sea . . . all the events that I remember, whether they are things that have happened to
me or things that I have heard from others. . . . All this goes on inside me, in the vast cloisters
of my memory."82
Augustine's comparison of memory to a sanctuary and cloisters reflects the deep association 31
between architecture and memory. This kinship stems from a fundamental awareness that in
order to preserve the stuff of memory for future recollection, it must first be collected and
stored in a manner that enables the mind's eye to compose and recombine the materials of
experience at will, as a given situation demands.83 Through its tactics of containment,
architecture helps the mind envision a spatial matrix that expresses and recursively facilitates
mnemonic practices. By constructing this matrix, or model, of the mind's workings within the
mind itselfthe kernel of Augustine's wonder and bewilderment 84 one edifies oneself as the

container of the universe of one's experience. Consequently, architecture has provided a legacy
of educators with a model for learning, furnishing mnemonic armatures that help the mind
render knowledge and experience accessible and comprehensible.85
Before our experiences may be stored as the stuff of memory, however, they must be 32
presented in a form that the mind can grasp. In De memoria, Aristotle describes how images
offer a vehicle for thought: "When we think of the concept 'triangle,' we think of a[n image of
a] triangle, even though we understand our image to be a conceptual model, 'as in drawing a
diagram.'" 86 For Aristotle, memories are ideas, abstracted from sensual stimuli, that the mind
can apprehend only through a representative image.87 Augustine echoes this thought: "The
things which we sense do not enter the memory themselves, but their images are there ready
to present themselves to our thoughts when we recall them."88
Although it is now commonly held that all of the senses contribute to the formation of 33
personal memory, even triggering the confounding episodes best described as synesthetic, the
faculty of vision has been traditionally considered the central agencythe "noble sense"of
memory and reason. Alberti notes: "It is remarkable how some natural instinct allows each of
us, learned and ignorant alike, to sense immediately what is right or wrong in the execution
and design of a work. It is precisely with regard to such matters that sight shows itself the
keenest of all the senses."89 Luca Pacioli, a polymath who was a guest of Alberti's in Rome and
later dedicated a treatise on mathematics to Duke Guidobaldo, similarly declared: "Even the
vulgar agree that the eye is the first portal through which the intellect understands and
tastes."90
As gateway to the intellect and sapientia,91 the eye has 34

Fig. 4.26. Drawing of medal.
been traditionally perceived as a central locus of personal
character. Matthew (6:2223) proclaims the eye as the "lamp of the body": ". . . if the light
inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be." Leonardo da Vinci, who shared quarters
with Francesco di Giorgio in Pavia92 and illustrated Pacioli's treatise on the divine
proportion, concurs:
Whoever loses vision loses the sight and beauty of the universe, and remains like
one buried alive in a tomb in which he has only movement and life. Now, do you
not see that the eye embraces the beauty of the whole world? It is master of
astronomy, it makes cosmography, counsels and corrects all the human arts,
moves men to different parts of this world, is the prince of mathematics; its
sciences are most certain, it has measured the height and size of the stars,
generated architecture, perspective and divine painting. . . . The eye is the
window of the human body through which it examines its way in the world and
enjoys the beauty of the world. Because of this the soul is content in its human
prison, and without sight this human prison is its torment; by means of the eye
human industry has found fire, so that the eye itself reacquired that which
darkness had previously taken away. The eye has ornamented nature with
agriculture, and delightful gardens. But what need is there to extend myself in
such heights and lengths of discourse? What has not been done by the eye? It
moves men from east to west, has found navigation; it surpasses nature because

things made by nature are finite, and the works that the eye commands of the
hands are infinite, as the painter shows in his feigning of infinite forms of
animals, herbs, plants and places.93
While studying the imagery of the studioli, one must distinguish between mnemotechniques, 35
which were traditional practices of crafting memory, and semiotics, "the science of
communication studied through the interpretation of signs and symbols."94 Despite their
pivotal role in preserving sensuous perceptions, mnemonic images do not inherently mean
anything. Reduced to their essence, they offer mental switches, or conduits, that assist one to
constellate ideas from stored experiences to fit the circumstances at hand.95 This amplifies
the value of artistic works like the studioli since, from Aristotle on, memory treatises concur
that corporeal images are necessary for an idea or experience to be fixed securely in the mind
and readily available for recollection. In De visione Dei, Nicholas of Cusa asserts: "The human
intellect, if it is to find expression in action, require[s] images [phantasmata], and images
cannot be had without the senses, and senses subsist not without a body."96 Likewise,
Publicius states: "Simple and spiritual ideas which are aided by no bodily likenesses slip very
quickly out of memory."97
Over time, images accumulate associations as the residue of prolonged use and familiarity. 36
Iconography affords a valuable point of entry into emblematic works like the studioli.98 Often,
though, iconographic analysis attributes a direct correspondence between image and
meaning, emphasizing the intellectual value of an image at the expense of its experiential
qualities. This is problematic, since the intrinsic value of a mnemonic image was its flexibility
in conveying different meanings to various people under ever-changing circumstances.
Moreover, the emotional impact of an imageits capacity to move a viewer figuratively and
literally, inwardly as well as outwardlywas quintessential to its usefulness in memory
craft.99
The image of caged birds, prominently displayed in both studioli, provided the Montefeltro 37
dukes with a range of associations. In addition to evoking eloquence, papagalli held
biographical significance for Federico. On 5 March 1475, the duke received the Golden Rose
from Pope Sixtus IV at the Vatican Palace in the Camera Papagalli, a room next to the pope's
bedroom reserved for confidential negotiations.100 Compositionally, papagalli also provided
the intarsists with an opportunity to display their ingenuity. At Gubbio, the anamorphic
distortion of the octagonal birdcage reveals a centralized standpoint for appreciating the
chamber's perspectival construction. Furthermore, certain woods used by intarsists hosted a
green fungus that could be used as an ornamental flourish. At Gubbio, verdigris poplar is
found in the papagallo's tail feathers: at Urbino it appears in the duke's monogram.
More metaphorically, in Plato's Theatetus, an inquiry on the nature of knowledge, Socrates 38

compares the memory to an aviary: "Let us make in each soul a sort of aviary of all kinds of
birds. . . . When anyone takes possession of a piece of knowledge [a bird] and shuts it up in the
pen, we should say that he has learned or has found . . . knowledge; and knowing, we should

say, is this."101 Unfortunately, although a cage may seem a logical metaphor for memory, if
the "birds of knowledge" are permitted to fly about at will, even within the confines of our own
"cage," we might very well reach in and retrieve a dove instead of the parrot we had sought. To
prevent such mnemonic misapprehensions, it is vital to design memory structures carefully.
As Hugh of St. Victor warns, "Confusion is the mother of ignorance and forgetfulness, but
orderly arrangement illuminates the intelligence and firms up memory."102
Fig. 4.27. Papagalli and cage, Fig. 4.28. Papagallo and birdcage,
Urbino studiolo. Gubbio studiolo.
Fig. 4.29. Image of a spinning

birdcage.
Extended Caption 16
A retracing of mnemonic models reveals a polithetic evolution in design, from simple 39

architectonic containment toward increasingly elaborate strategies. As demonstrated by the
studiolo-within-a-studiolo at Urbino, more complex models often incorporated earlier models
into their design through such extended memory techniques as "nesting" or
"concatenation."103 These techniques increased memory capacity while providing the mind's
eye with an array of possible routes for mental perambulation and, consequently, thought
permutation.
From at least as early as classical Greece, beehives and their forulae,104 as well as dovecotes 40
and their loculamentae,105 were among the commonplace vessels easily transposed into the
mind as models for memory training. The cellular, latticelike construction of these containers
like the cabinet doors found in both studioliprovided a particularly useful figure for
memory, permitting discrete bits of information to be stored, recombined, and re-presented
to the mind as needed. Hugh instructs his reader: "Learn to construct in your mind a grid
numbered from one on, in however long a sequence you want, extended as it were before the
eyes of your mind. . . . Make this method of thinking and the way of imaging it practiced and
habitual, so that you conceive visually of the extent and limit of all numerical groups, just as
though [they were] placed in particular places. And listen to how this mental visualization
[consideratio] could be useful for learning by heart."106
As a student became adept at these memory exercises, 41

Fig. 4.30. The reticulated grid
became a "dominant" feature of the built environment offered a quarry for mnemonic
medieval mnemonics. material. One would extract fragments from the
buildings encountered in daily life and recompose them
in the mind as personalized palaces copiously outfitted with storage locations for choice

morsels of wisdom. Consequently, amid rhetorical debate or presentation, one could summon
passages at will and re-present them sequentially by the mental navigation of a given palace/
treatise.
Striking (or monstrous)107 construction details were considered choice materials for 42
mnemonic construction since they provided the mind with secure memory fixtures. If the
locations for memory placement were too ordinary, or even too poorly "illuminated," errors
would occur. Publicius bluntly states, "Resemblance among places should be avoided more
than death," a comment that reveals a fundamental difference between contemporary and
quattrocento perceptions of memory.108 Whereas we now perceive errors of memory
(including inaccuracy and "forgetting") to occur in the process of recollection, memory errors
were traditionally considered to occur during the process of storage, owing to a failure to
transform sense impressions into secure mental images.
It is reasonable to speculate, then, that architectural ornament not only influenced 43

architectural mnemonics but was in turn influenced by its procedures. This would have been
especially true where sponsors of construction were steeped in rhetoric, as in classical Rome.
For a culture defined by political oration and legal debate, the architecture of palaces and the
city provided a ubiquitous map and legend (as well as a mental stage-setting) for composing
one's thoughts and oneself for the theater of civic participation.
Vitruvius attests to the significance of rhetoric: "Advocates [lawyers] and professors of 44

rhetoric should be housed with distinction, and in sufficient space to accommodate their
audiences."109 In addition to underscoring the theatrical nature of rhetoric, with its
performers earning fees "on the scale of those given to a prima donna in our time,"110
Vitruvius's comment suggests that rooms were invented within the private residence to house
these rhetorical performances.111
Fig. 4.31. Federico and Guidobaldo Fig. 4.32. Ornament in the

listening attentively to an oration. cubiculum from the villa of P.
Fannius Synistor, ca. 50-40 BCE.
A smaller, more private chamber in the Roman home, the cubiculum, transparently embodies 45
the historical chiasmus between architecture and memory. Replete with frescoes of
illusionistically rendered civic and garden architecture, the cubiculum offered a theater of
locations for contemplation. The mingling of flora and fauna with architectonic elements
(pergolas, fountains, and structural ornament) is telling.112 In the fourth Georgic, Virgil
speaks of the cells in a beehive as cubilia.113 By ancient tradition bees were associated with
knowledge and learning and were called the "birds of the muses." Consequently, scholars were
likened to bees, whose diligent investigations afield gather nectar to produce honey.114
During the Middle Ages pedagogical tropes of bees, beehives, wax, and honey became
somewhat less metaphoric, when monasteries literally buzzed with the sounds of cogitation,

as brethren "ate the book" and ruminated.115 In Federico's day, Publicius encouraged his
reader: "With moderate sound and in a voice just above a whisper, we will commit the text
easily to memory and to places."116
Although the steady hum of rumination was gradually hushed by the printing press, Francis 46
Bacon incorporated the trope as a fundamental image of the scientific method when he
likened the scholar-scientist to a bee in the first chapter of the Novum organum (1626).117 It
is not far-fetched, then, to draw a comparison among the mnemonic imagery of classical
forulae, the florilegium (literally the "reading of flowers"), and the floral ornament found in
the margins of illuminated manuscripts and architectural settings of study. Nor is it stretching
the point too far to envision the Roman cubiculum and the Montefeltro studioli entwined
within the genealogy of these pedagogical metaphors, as cells in which the scholar-bee would
distill and preserve the sweet nectar of experience. Castiglione advises:
He who wishes to be a good pupil, besides performing his tasks well, must put
forth every effort to resemble his master, and, if it were possible, to transform
himself into his master. And when he feels that he has made some progress, it
will be very profitable to observe different men of the same calling, and
governing himself with that good judgment which must ever be his guide, to go
about selecting now this thing from one and that thing from another. And as the
bee in the green meadows is ever wont to rob the flowers among the grass, so
our Courtier must steal this grace from all who seem to possess it, taking from
each that part which shall most be worthy praise.118
In a related matter, one might wonder at the ornamental 47

Fig. 4.33. Sevenfold flowers,
thistle-like artichokes and abundance of pearls in the studioli. Iconographically, the
pomegranates in an intarsiated pearl has been interpreted as "the result of lightning
cushion at Urbino.
penetrating the oyster, hence it was regarded as the
union of fire and water, both fecundating forces, and so
denotes birth and rebirth; fertility. It also symbolizes innocence, purity, virginity, perfection,
humility and a retiring nature."119 In Greco-Roman traditions, the pearl represented "love
and marriage, [as an] emblem of Aphrodite/Venus, the 'Lady of the Pearls,' who rose from the
waters."120 Furthermore, in Christian traditions, the pearl denotes the Immaculate
Conception, as well as "the hidden gnosis necessary for salvation, the 'pearl of great price,' for
which man must dive into the waters of baptism and encounter dangers."121 It is also worth
noting that the 12 gates of the New Jerusalem, described in the book of Revelation, were made
of pearls.
In ancient Rome, pearls were highly valued for their commercial exoticism: on the Italic 48
peninsula, only irregularly formed, reddish pearls were available. The pearls of the highest
value were white and spherical, and they arrived from Persia and the Orient. During the
Renaissance, the primary eastern point of entry to Italy was Venice. By the end of the 15th
century, sumptuary laws were created to temper the extravagant purchase and public display
of pearls, which had created a phenomenon akin to the tulipomania experienced by the

Netherlands in the 17th century.122 In a chapter dedicated to mollusks in his guide to right
pleasure and good health, Bartolomeo Platina alludes to this decadent aspect of pearls
through an infamous episode from the life of Cleopatra: "When she was enticing Antony to
wantonness, she said that she could spend 10,000,000 sesterces on one meal. When she saw
Antony was surprised at that, she laughed, and the crazy woman called for a vial into which
she poured some sharp vinegar and, plucking a pearl from her ear [worth ten million
sesterces] with her other swift hand, dropped it in, and when it was soon dissolved, as is the
nature of this stone, she served it to Marc Antony to drink."123
In ancient Rome, a white spherical pearl was called an unio,124 a Latin term for the number 49
one that serves also as the root of union-em, expressing unity and union.125 "Imperfect" pearls
were called margarites by Theophrastus.126 The pearls traditionally depicted in Renaissance
paintings, as in the studioli, are spherical and white. Recalling that from early recorded history
the sphere has represented an idealized form of the universe, it is understandable, particularly
in light of the late quattrocento "rediscovery" of Plato and Plotinus, that the pearl embodied
notions of perfection, unity, and purity in miniature. Unlike most precious stones and gems,
which require faceting to reveal their splendor, the pearl is perfect in its natural state and may
be seen to manifest the universal monad, a notion familiar to the court of Urbino through the
De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella and the interests of Nicholas of
Cusa.127
There is another, more sinuous path that links pearls to the Montefeltro studioli. Because 50
pearls were cultivated by other cultures at quite a distance, information about the practice of
pearl harvesting in classical Rome and Renaissance Italy was sparse. From secondhand
sources, historians report that pearl oysters lived in communities "like swarms of bees," being
governed by one "remarkable for its size and great age, which was wonderfully expert in
keeping its subjects out of danger."128 Similarly, Platina writes that bees "have law in the
likeness of a very good chief to whom everything is referred. With him going ahead, they set
out from place to place, or he is carried out if he cannot fly."129 This sentiment is shared by
Castiglione, who refers to the habits of the bee as characteristic of the appropriate behavior of
a prince, seeing that the prince is the source of law for his subjects.130 With these
comparisons, it is not a fantastic leap to attribute other associations of bees to oystersthat,
for example, pearls would be the monadic offspring of the "sea-birds" of the muses. Platina
notes: "They say the oyster is impregnated by conception from the dew when the appointed
hour of its fruitful year sends it out opened up as though with gaping mouth, and better pearls
are born from the quality of the dew, pure or worse."131
As odd as all of this might seem from our vantage, historic narratives enlace this notion more 51
securely to the studioli. With the victories of Pompey (8863 bce), pearls were brought back
from the Orient in plenitude. "Pliny records that in great Pompey's triumphal procession in 61
B.C. were borne 33 crowns of pearls and numerous pearl ornaments, including a portrait of
the victor, and a shrine dedicated to the muses."132 Moreover, Philo, as the Jewish envoy to

Rome, noted that the beds used by Romans for meditative repair in their cubiculae were
adorned with multitudes of pearls.133 As the latticework and forulae of studious environments
provided ideal mnemonic perches for bees and doves, it is also logical that the furniture in a
setting dedicated to the muses would be adorned with their precious monadic excretions,
cultivated from the protean ocean.
In the 1476 portrait of Duke Federico with Prince Guidobaldo, Federico is shown as the 52
virtuous soldier-scholar, armed and reading, seated on a thronelike chair encrusted with
pearls. At the end of the Order of the Garter below his knee is a single pearl. Guidobaldo is
bedecked with pearls, as is the Persian-styled miter that Federico had received from the
ambassador of the Ottoman sultan Muhammad II in 1471. The duke's 1480 manuscript of
Virgil's Aeneid includes an image of the Montefeltro eagle surrounded by the Order of the
Garter, bordered with pearls. In the Gubbio studiolo, the scopetta in the central-most cabinet
(directly above the Order of the Garter) is encircled with pearls in remembrance of Duchess
Battista.134 Directly above, in the portrait of Guidobaldo with Rhetoric, the goddess is draped
with pearl necklaces, and pearls are set into the arch above her throne.135
For a work commissioned by Federico in 1472, now 53

Fig. 4.34. Detail from Piero della
Francesca's Brera Altarpiece. known as the Brera Altarpiece, Piero della Francesca
adorned the angels and Virgin Mary with pearls, while
flowers appoint the surrounding architecture. Suspended in a seashell at the back of the altar,
an ostrich egg evokes a complex metaphor: the scale of the egg (with regard to the shell) is
pearlescent, embedding the pantheistic iconography of a fecundating force in the historia of
the Immaculate Conception. In the scene, Federico kneels before the Christ child, a thinly
veiled reference to Prince Guidobaldo, whose recent birth provided a long-awaited heir to the
dukedom. As a transparent allusion to the impresa of the Montefeltro ostrich, the egg
emphasizes this conflation.
4.4 Aedificatio: Architecture as a Metaphor for Meditation
Whisper words of truth in my heart . . . while I withdraw to my secret cell

[cubiculo] and sing you hymns of love, groaning with grief that I cannot express
as I journey on my pilgrimage. Yet I shall remember the heavenly Jerusalem and
my heart shall be lifted up towards that holy place.
Augustine, Confessions, 12.16
Even before the fall of the Roman Empire, the 54

Fig. 4.35. St. Augustine among the
pedagogical objectives and procedures of memory illustrious men in the Urbino
training had begun to change markedly. The early fathers studiolo.
of the Christian ChurchAugustine, Jerome, Ambrose,
and Gregory the Greattransformed classical architectural mnemonics into sancta memoria
(holy recollection), a monastic practice of meditation that cultivated the memory through

aedificatio, a process in which the craft of edifying thoughts mirrored the edifying craft of
architecture. As Augustine's withdrawal to his "cubiculo" implies, memory architecture
offered a "secret" place within to dwell upon God as well as a vehicle to draw nearer to him, in
contemplation. In the words of Gregory the Great, memory became a machina mentisa
machine of the mindcapable of "lifting" the soul to God.136
Through the meditational exercises of sancta memoria, adepts assimilated and elaborated on 55
the foundation of Christian doctrinea historia of etymologies, narrative imagery, and
authoritative commentaries on biblical scripture. Memorization of historia exercised one's
heuristic capacities, insinuating an array of associative paths for thought.137 With architecture
as an operative metaphor, holy recollection secured historia as a commonplace foundation for
personal experience. Gregory the Great describes this process in Moralia in Job: "First we
put in place the foundations of literal meaning [historia]; then through typological
interpretation we build up the fabric of our mind in the walled city of faith; and at the end,
through the grace of our moral understanding, as though with added color, we clothe the
building."138
Before proceeding with the notion of aedificatio, however, we should first consider its 56
foundations. Basic memory models (birdcages and beehives) were adopted from classical
rhetoric, imbued with Christian doctrine, and applied according to increasingly complex
stratagems. In the Didascalicon (1128), a treatise on education notable for its treatment of
both the liberal and mechanical arts,139 Hugh of St. Victor divided the stages of learning into
the lectio divina and meditatio. Translated as "divine reading" or "study," the lectio trained
one's natural aptitude for thought by "the order and method of exposition and analysis,
including the disciplines of grammar and dialectic."140 Meditatio drew on skills honed by
lectio but was not bound by its rules or precepts: "[Meditatio] delights to range along open
ground, where it fixes its free gaze upon the contemplation of truth, drawing together now
these, now those ideas, or now penetrating into profundities, leaving nothing doubtful,
nothing obscure. The start of learning, thus, lies in lectio, but its consummation lies in
meditation."141
Among the mnemotechniques exercised in lectio divina, concatenation linked biblical 57

passages with commentaries of subsequent authors, forming chains of related topics to which
one would en-link one's own interpretations. Used as a metaphor for mnemonic training, the
chain by its interlocking nature recalled to one's mind an accumulation of associations, in the
order of attachment. With discipline and experience, these chains would lengthen and expand,
since they were not only topical but also temporal, forming a lineage of authoritative
commentaries. As a result, one could retrace the genealogy of an idea, image, or phrase from a
recent author, such as Aquinas, through the interpretive tropes of his Latin and Greek
predecessors to its origins in the Old Testament.

Fig. 4.36. Image of hooked fish, Fig. 4.37. Enlinked pretzels, after
after marginalia in The Hours of marginalia in The Hours of
Catherine of Cleves. Catherine of Cleves.
The ancient pedagogical trope of "eating the book," for instance, offers a prime example of the 58
catena. In Ezekiel 3:1 we find: "'Son of man, eat what is given to you; eat this scroll, then go
and speak to the House of Israel.' I opened my mouth; he gave me the scroll to eat and said,
'Son of man, feed and be satisfied by the scroll I am giving you.' I ate it, and it tasted sweet as
honey." Jerome, in his commentary on Ezekiel, notes that "eating the book is the starting-
point of reading and of basic history. When, by diligent meditation, we store away the book of
the Lord in our memorial treasury, our belly is filled spiritually and our guts are satisfied."142
Jerome's contemporary Augustine also describes the ruminative character of the memory:
"No one can pretend that the memory does not belong to the mind. We might say that the
memory is a sort of stomach for the mind, and that joy or sadness are like sweet or bitter
food."143 Today when we speak, we continue to use, even if unwittingly, such gustatory terms
as digest and ruminate to describe the thought process.
An even more fitting example of the catena is offered by 59

Fig. 4.38. "Chain" border detail
from cabinets at Gubbio. the catena aurea, or Golden Chain. This image signified
for Homer the rays of the sun and the interlocking
movements of the celestial bodies and is also found in the works of Plato, Plotinus, Macrobius,
Ficino, and the court astrologer of Urbino, Paul of Middleburg.144 Among the tropes attached
to this image, the catena aurea represented a link between heaven and earth, micro- and
macrocosmos, and ancient scholars and Renaissance humanists.145 As a vital link in this
tradition, Aquinas composed the Catena aurea, a work compiled in 1263 from patristic texts
on the Gospels he had committed to memory during visits to various religious houses.146
Language provided ideal materials for concatenation. Through the educational practice of 60
etymological foraging, various significances of a word could be gathered and unleashed in the
mind as an imaginative force of interpretation. Exemplary treatises such as Isidore of Seville's
Etymologiae explored the visual and aural subtleties of language as inventive byways for
thought.147 Whether visualized as letters and words orthographically transposed to the page
of the mind148 or humorously sounded out as puns and onomatopoeia, language was
phenomenologically conducive to memorization. For Isidore, Hugh, and Aquinas, whose texts
were dictated, digested, and transcribed aloud, kinship between such terms as Babel (the
tower) and babble (the confused language that precipitated the fall of the Tower of Babel) was
not only self-evident, it was tantamount to historical truth.149
By such etymological conflation, Hugh transformed the ancient image of the arca, a chest 61
containing books and personal belongings, into an arca sapientia, a container of wisdom built
into the memory. Within the mental image of an arca Hugh nested properties of a storage
chest, an apothecary's shop, the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of Noah, and a walled city,

equipping a student with a model of extended techniques for mnemonic meditation. First,
Hugh introduces the arca as being contained within oneself: "Children, knowledge [sapientia]
is a treasury [thesaurus] and your heart is its strongbox [archa]."150 Elsewhere, he directly
compares the arca with the self: "I give you the Ark of Noah as a model of spiritual building,
which your eye may see outwardly so that your soul may be built inwardly in its likeness."151
Hugh then describes in great detail how this ark is to be constructed, through a theological
rendering of the traditional architectural mnemonics of images and places.152
A more complex group of pedagogical devices, the 62

Fig. 4.39. Drawing of a fortified
city on a hill. machinae universitatis, was designed "to organize a large
amount of disparate information in a readily available,
mnemonically effective, way."153 Often these two-dimensional diagrams were fitted with
moving parts to facilitate the recombination and permutation of vast arrays of visual bits of
information. Concentric wheels with moveable rings, like those devised by Raymond Lull in
the late 13th century, were commonly employed in medieval instruction;154 for memory craft,
they were often rendered in the guise of compatible mechanisms, such as astrolabes.155 In
addition to a series of alphamnemonic wheels, Publicius's treatise offers several examples of
these recombinatorial diagrams, including a Porphyrian tree and a chessboard with its
pieces.156
Fig. 4.40. A concentric Fig. 4.41. Astrolabe and armillary

combinatorial memory wheel. sphere, Urbino studiolo.
As a palpable metaphor for thought and the workings of the memory, building became valued 63
as an active state of knowing as well as an enclosure for knowledge. By entering into (a)
memory building, one ascended from the world in a state of contemplative love. The
architect's machina, used to hoist blocks of masonry into place, symbolically facilitated this
ascent due both to its pivotal role in the construction of divine structures, such as cathedrals
and monasteries, and, even more important, to the overarching notion that God the Architect
would have used such a mechanism while fabricating the universe.157 In Etymologiae, Isidore
of Seville extracts the word maciones (mason) from the Latin machina, citing the tradition of
the architect-inventor who, like Daedalus, designs the walls of buildings and the machines that
facilitate their fabrication.158 For Gregory the Great the machina symbolized the act of
contemplation, energized by love,159 which builds the fabric of the mind. As the mechanism of
aedificatio, contemplation facilitated the discovery or fabrication of a universe within the
memory, empowering one to emulate in small compass the labors of God the Architect.
Somewhat less metaphorically, Vitruvius had defined a 64

Fig. 4.42. Triple hoist mechanism
carved by Ambrogio Barrocci after machine as "a continuous material system having special
drawing by Francesco di Giorgio. fitness for the moving of weights."160 He distinguished
Extended Caption 18
between machines (machinae), which are "driven by

several workmen," and instruments (organae), which "carry out their purpose by the careful
handling of a single workman," a pragmatic observation that foreshadowed a central motif of
sancta memoria.161 The operation of machines required collaborative effort to transport
materials too cumbersome for one person alone, a simple fact that supplied the practitioners
of aedificatio with a wellspring for allegory. As the lesson of the Tower of Babel illustrates,
without appropriate planning and prudent guidance, collaborative projects even those with
a clear and common purposeare easily sabotaged by miscommunication. There are
numerous opportunities for chance and human discord to disrupt the flow of construction.
From the intricate choreography of various trades and materials to adroit solutions for the
dilemmas that inevitably arise, the complexity of construction calls for prudent leadership.
A wise and well-tempered architect, incorporating 65

Fig. 4.43. Column hoist carved by
experience and foresight, is essential to conduct the Ambrogio Barrocci after drawing
volatile dynamics of collaboration toward the goal of by Francesco di Giorgio.
raising an edifice. As caretaker of the process of
construction, who translates the intangible ideals of a community into its places of gathering,
an architect is invested with profound ethical responsibility. For the meditative practice of
aedificatio, the architect's machina was topologically conveyed to the site of memory-building
as an ethical device central to self-edification.
The collaborative nature of construction fueled other allegorical interpretations. Unlike 66

contemporary construction, where buildings are shaped by a legally binding "critical path" of
budgeted schedules, cathedrals and monasteries were continuously "under construction,"
their final form manifesting centuries of communal effort and an aggregate of ornamental
character bestowed by legacies of architects and master masons. The indefinite duration, or
non finito, of this mode of construction should not be oversimplified as a matter of
technological capacity; rather, it reflects ontological aspirations quite removed from our own.
As Federico and his architects incorporated existing structures into their architectural
projects, so they left certain areas "unfinished," to be elaborated on by others. The entry
facade of the Urbino palace offers a prominent example of non finito.
From the peripatetic apostle Paul to his monastic 67

Fig. 4.44. "Unfinished" faade of
Urbino's ducal palace. descendants, educators of sancta memoria played on the
image of architecture as an exercise for building personal
character and communal identity. In 1 Corinthians 3:1017, Paul refers to himself as a wise
master builder, claiming to have laid the foundations of a doctrine whereupon others would
continue to build within themselveseach as a temple wherein, it was said, God dwells.
Subsequent authors, such as Gregory and Hugh, attended to the methods of interpretation by
which each student would raise, internally and uniquely, an allegorical superstructure on the
foundations of historia.162 Although constructed from commonplace materials (fables and
buildings), memory architecture was a personal creation, reflecting the unique character of

each pupil. Although this mnemonic architecture was invisible to others, one's character was
not, expressing itself in one's worldly interactions. Like the florilegium, the practice of
aedificatio built personal character and established guiding principles for everyday life.
The practice of aedificatio was thus simultaneously 68

personal and communal. Within the most secret cell of human and building profiles.
your memory, the arca or cubiculum of your heart, your Extended Caption 19
private meditations were trained toward the ethical
objective of sancta memoriato envision an ideal condition for living among others, and to
translate from this ideal a practice of everyday life. Although one's memory structures were
visible only to oneself, all who practiced aedificatio were united by the notion that they
continued the work of God as architects of their own lives. Paul exhorts: "We are fellow
workers with God, you are God's building."163
The convivial aspirations of sancta memoria fortified 69

Fig. 4.46. Detail of The Effects of
Good Government. personal expression. Compared with the habitual
training of the lectio, meditatio was characterized by a
free play of association and not obliged to follow a prescribed path.164 And yet, in spite of its
"delight to range along open ground . . . drawing together now these, now those ideas," it was
essential for meditation to have a target destination to orient one's inner pilgrimage. In
monastic meditation, all roads led to the New Jerusalem, Augustine's City of God.165
Apart from the evocative account of its foundations and general character in Revelation 21, 70
the New Jerusalem was as open to imaginative interpretation as the mnemonic models and
mechanisms conceived to assist in contemplation. The fruit of study, then, was to envision the
ideal city within oneself as a communal building site for memory, energized and supplied with
the materials gathered from one's diligent investigations afield. While providing an inner
source of hope and fortitude by the promise of an ideal state unassailed by fortuna and the
fragility of human affairs, the City of God was also a constant reminder that citizenship in the
hereafter was determined by the character of one's actions in the present.166
The intangible objective of the New Jerusalem did not diminish but rather elevated the value 71
of material works, particularly those assisting in mnemonic composition. Since knowledge of
a material art was thought to provide a "sort" of wisdom, products of artisanship were
considered to demonstrate virt by their capacity to assist the mind to rise above the realm of
the senses to divine contemplation. Examples of such virt are offered by medieval picturae
paintings, tapestries, or mental images painted with words (including poems).167 Picturae
were composed of imagines agentes, activating images that stimulated cogitation and
facilitated mnemonic navigation. As in classical architectural mnemonics, the images in
picturae assisted memorization by supplying cues for the twists of a given storyline: likewise,
these visual prompts also furnished one's own compositional inventions.

In addition to a destination (skopos), picturae provided meditation with a starting point 72

(status) and visual channels (ductus) to convey the mind's eye among the episodes of a
depicted narrative.168 Less significant than where meditation began was how it began: the
status could be any image or phrase that adequately stimulated the emotions and triggered
the recollective process. As such, the pictura offered apertures for entry into thought. One
might, for example, follow Aristotle's suggestion to begin from a central location and proceed
to consider the images on either side, precisely the condition we find in the east wall of the
Urbino studiolo.169
Pictural compositions offered spaces for thought; their 73

Fig. 4.47. East wall of Urbino
studiolo. dense visual settings invited mental perambulation.
During contemplation of a fresco or tapestry, in its
presence or in recollection, the mind's eye entered the picture plane and navigated among the
images, generating new associations and courses for thought.170 Ductus offered tracks for the
pilgrim's progress. Vegetation, animals, and architectural ornament were conduits for the flow
of one's thought: redirecting it, altering its pace, and drawing the mind's eye along a narrative
path while providing ample opportunity for digression and invention. Images provided
memory markers for this flow, turning points that stimulated and sustained an observer's
interest and empathy.
The narrative space of a pictura could be rendered as a thematic cycle, with ornamental ductus 74
leading observers across the fabric of a cathedral or monastic compound. Picturae could be
mounted onto wooden panels and assembled contiguously to create intimate, contemplative
settings, as at St. Peter's and Sta. Maria Maggiore in Rome.171 They could also be strategically
placed throughout a larger construct as markers for ritual processions: the Stations of the
Cross, for example, integrates the architectural ornament of a church and the ritual
choreography of its congregation. In addition to its metaphoric dimensions, then, architecture
provided a prosthetic for the mind, a physical matrix that set thought in motion by engaging
the body's entire sensory apparatus. The cathedral provided the medieval mind with an
"engine for prayer," facilitating private meditation and communal ritual proceedings, as well
as the perambulatory flow of pilgrims across Europe towards the earthly Jerusalem.172
The architectural ornament of actual and imagined 75

Fig. 4.48. Piazza del Foro, Rimini.
Extended Caption 20 buildings conveyed the mind's eye between the exterior
world and the interior seat of judgment.173 With the
theological and moral underpinnings of church doctrine, the ornamental language of
architecture was conceived and refined as a topological guide to visualizing social conduct.
Through sancta memoria, mnemonic architecture offered a medium for invention as well as a
container for inventory. Study was considered a lifelong endeavor rather than a liminal phase
a lifetime of finding and keeping to the Way, as a pilgrim en route between the lost Zion and
the dream of the New Jerusalem. History offered foundations on which the edifice of one's life
would be constructed. Lectio prepared the adept with the tools and procedures for crafting

thought and thereby edifying oneself. The practice of meditatio cultivated one's habits in
emulation of God the Architect. Through the metaphor of aedificatio one negotiated everyday
life while contributing to the unceasing fabrication of Augustine's heavenly Jerusalem, a
destination that, for Federico, Guidobaldo, and their colleagues, bore striking resemblance to
Plato's Republic.

Notes
Note 1: A member of one of Venice's Longhi (long-established families), Giustiniani (13881446)

held several positions of considerable political influence: among them, he led the powerful and
secretive Council of Ten and was procurator at San Marco. In his leisure time, Leonardo wrote letters
in Latin and translations from Greek, but he was most widely celebrated for his love songs,
particularly his canzonette and strombotti. The originality of these compositions, whose style became
known as Giustinian, derived from the fusion of popular song with an elegant and recondite
interweaving of lyrics in Greek, Latin, and Venetian dialect. Several works to his credit were present
in Urbino's ducal library (I.V. #31, 405, 406, and 408). Giustiniani's lyrics to the love song "O Bella
Rosa" were originally burnished into an intarsiated manuscript in the Gubbio studiolo.
Note 2: Labalme, Bernardino Giustiniani, 23.
Note 3: Castiglione's Book of the Courtier features a lengthy debate among members of the Urbino
court (including the Venetian Pietro Bembo) concerning the inherent differences between republics
and principalities.
Note 6: "It is hard to talk to yourself for hours on end. Sustained thought in an oral culture is tied to
communication." Ong, Orality and Literacy, 34.
Note 7: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 105, mentions that Lazzaro read daily from
Holy Writ. Is this perhaps the same Maestro Lazzaro who reputedly cast a horoscope for Lorenzo de'
Medici in 1492, just before the death of Il Magnifico?
Note 10: If by chance they had not already met in Venice, Federico and Bernardo would cross paths
in Rome early in the 1460s, during Sigismondo Malatesta's excommunication trial. Representing the
Serenissima, Giustiniani (unsuccessfully) petitioned Pope Pius II to pardon the condottiere, whose
lands Venice considered the belly of its republic. Following the trial, Malatesta remained in Venice's
employment, fighting in Greece until his death in 1468.
Note 11: Epideictic oration, or elocution, addresses a present circumstance, treating a subject with
the progymnasmata exercises of praise (encomium) or blame (invective). See Kennedy, New History
of Classical Rhetoric, 205, and Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, 217.
Note 12: Origo, "Education," 68.
Note 13: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 99. The character of dialectical disputation
was not necessarily antagonistic. Rather it was conversational, in keeping with the humanist tenet
that historical research was an ongoing dialogue with one's ancestors.
Note 14: Labalme, Bernardo Giustiniani, 23.
Note 15: This is not to be mistaken for plagiarism. "Medieval scholars simply did not share our
distrust of memory's 'accuracy' . . . [in a 'perfect' memory] what was valued was completeness,
copiousness, rather than 'objective' accuracy, as we understand and value it now." Carruthers, Book
of Memory, 160.
Note 16: Bembo refers to the bella figura that Guidobaldo cast while in Venice during his exile in
15023. Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, 2:23. Bembo later joined Guidobaldo's court.
Note 17: This skill no doubt fed Guidobaldo's intellectual curiosity. Kristeller has described a series
of ongoing debates among Greek scholars in Italycomposed in Greekthat addressed such topics as
the concept of substance and the doctrine of fate. Works of several of these authors, including

Cardinal Bessarion, Guidobaldo's godfather (I.V. #96, 229, 630, p. CXLIX, nn. 45, 46), and Theodore
Gaza (I.V. #427, graec. 163), were present in the ducal library. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and
Its Sources, 158.
Note 18: "He [Guidobaldo] is said to have possessed that rarest gift of never forgetting anything he
wished to recollect, and to have repeated with perfect accuracy successive pages which he had read
only once, some ten or 15 years before." Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, 1:29697.
Note 19: "He [Guidobaldo] was educated to be worthy to follow his father, and the same training is
still pursued." Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 107.
Note 20: Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, De liberorum educatione, 1450. Cited by Woodward, Vittorino
da Feltre, 136ff. Piccolomini, an arch-humanist named after a descendant of the Aeneas of Virgil's
epic poem, was an ardent supporter of Alberti and Montefeltro. His interests in education and
memory were matched by the desire to build: under his sponsorship, his (modest) hometown was
transformed into Pienza. The encomium for his portrait in the Urbino studiolo reads: "Pio II Pontif
[ici] Max[imo], ob imperium auctum armis, ornatumq[ue] eloquentiae signis, Fed[ericus] pos[uit],
magnitudini animi laboribusq[ue] assiduis. (To Pope Pius II, because he increased his realms and
adorned it with the marks of eloquence, Federico set this up to his magnanimity and unceasing
labours.)" Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 95. Works of Piccolomini's in the ducal library include I.V.
#47984, and p. CXLIX, n. 42.
Note 21: Aspicis Eternos Venerande Matris Alumnos / Doctrina Excelsos Ingenioq Viros / Ut Nuda
Cervice Cadant Ante [Ora Parentis / Supplic]Iter Flexo Procubuere Genu / Iustitia Pietas Vincit
Reverenda Nec Ullum / Poenitet Altrici Succubuisses Sue. (You see how the eternal students of the
Venerable Mother / Men exalted in learning and in genius / Fall forward, suppliantly with bared
head / And bended knee, before [the face of their parent]. / With the help of Justice, reverend Piety
prevails / And none regrets having submitted to his foster mother.) Section 5 explores the
significance(s) of "Aspicis."
Note 22: In addition to Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 93, see Nachod's translation, as cited by Cheles,
Studiolo of Urbino, 28n15.
Note 23: Because Guidobaldo's mother died following his birth, foster mother might also bear literal
connotations.
Note 24: Publicius, Art of Memory, 10.
Note 25: "The 'places and images' [loci and imagines] scheme of artificial memorywhich I call the
'architectural mnemonic,' a term more accurate than Frances Yates's 'Ciceronian mnemonic' and less
misleading than the Renaissance's 'the art of memory'is described most fully in Rhetorica ad
Herennium, which is dated 8682 B.C., just after Cicero's De inventione." Carruthers, Book of
Memory, 71.
Note 27: The name Ca' Zoiosa derived from the villa inhabited by the school, a former "pleasure
house" used by the patron Gianfrancesco Gonzaga's predecessor (zoiosa is Venetian dialect for
jocose). Ca' Zoiosa is also referred to by the Italian la Giocosala.
Note 28: Da Feltre also accepted female students such as Cecilia Gonzaga, who was later betrothed
to Federico's younger brother, Oddantonio. The wedding never occurred, however, since neither party
favored the marriage: Oddantonio was assassinated soon after, and Cecilia Gonzaga later entered a
convent.
Note 29: The Ca' Zoiosa was fashioned after the academy of Gasparino Barzizza, with whom da
Feltre had studied and later succeeded as professor of rhetoric at the University of Padova. Alberti
also had studied with Barzizza, whose writings were bound together with those of Guarino da Verona
in the Urbino library (I.V. #604).

Note 30: Biographies on da Feltre were composed by two former students, Bartolomeo Platina and
Francesco Prendilacqua. Prendilacqua's work was commissioned by Federico. Both biographies (I.V.
#620 and #418, respectively) were in the ducal library.
Note 32: In the Oxford English Dictionary, this is the first definition of eloquence (from eloqui, to
speak out). The fourth meaning is rhetoric. Elegance, in contrast, derives from elegare, to tie, and
relates to eligere, to select. The etymological sense is thus "choosing carefully or skilfully." "1.
Tastefully ornate in attire 2. Characterized by refined grace of form. Of physical movements:
Graceful. 3. Of modes of life, dwellings and their appointments 4. Of composition; . . . of words or
phrases: Characterized by grace and refinement 5. Of scientific processes, contrivances; 'Neat,'
pleasing by ingenious simplicity and effectiveness 6. Of persons: correct and delicate in taste b.
Refined in manners and habits."
Note 33: Origo, "Education," 62. "If this Courtier speaks with so much elegance and grace, I doubt if
anyone will be found among us who will understand him.""Nay, he will be understood by
everyone," replied the Count, "because facility is no impediment to elegance." Castiglione, Book of
the Courtier, 45.
Note 34: This process was not rational, as Carruthers notes, "but one of desire and will guided
through the process of change by remembered habit, 'firmas facilitas' or hexis." Book of Memory,
169. "Hexis," writes Barbara Duden, "is the Greek word for attitude, for the habitual state in which a
person finds herself." Disembodying Women, 91.
Note 35: Aristotle Politics 8.3, 1338b2.
Note 36: Da Feltre would awaken his most promising students before daylight for an extra hour's
worth of instruction. Origo, "Education," 61.
Note 37: Piccolomini, De liberorum educatione, cited by Schevill, First Century of Italian
Humanism, 74. Publicius includes old beef and "meat from an animal which has pulled a plough"
among those foods contrary to mental activity: "You will consider it necessary to abstain from cold
and moist meals and brain, marrow, ham. . . . Pungent and smoky things, such as horseradish, garlic,
onion, leek, unless they are digested by fire, you will ward off as an enemy of memory." Art of
Memory, 30.
Note 38: In Timaeus, Plato writes that music aligns the orbits of the soul with the revolutions of the
universe. About dancing, he adds: "Rhythm was given us from the same heavenly source to help us in
the same way; for most of us lack measure and grace." Timaeus 47d.
Note 39: Vergerius, De ingenuis moribus (I.V. #255), cited by Schevill, First Century of Italian
Humanism, 67.
Note 41: Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro dedicated the second edition of his treatise on the art of dance,
De pratica seu arte tripudii, to Duke Federico. See Gallo, Music in the Castle, 6, 76, 110, and
Summers, Judgment of Sense, 111.
Note 42: Guarino, De ordine docendi et studendi, cited by Schevill, First Century of Italian
Humanism, 79.
Note 43: Battista (d. 1447) was wed to Galeazzo Malatesta, lord of Pesaro. She likely played a role in
the sale of Pesaro to Alessandro Sforza, as engineered by Federico in 1444.
Note 44: Bruni, De studiis et literis, cited by Schevill, First Century of Italian Humanism, 69.
Humanism, 74.

Note 47: The product of a progymnasmata exercise, gnome, a maxim, is an adaptation (abstraction
or elaboration) of a preexisting moral statement. It is akin to chreia, a morally steeped reminiscence
of a person. Kennedy, New History of Classical Rhetoric, 204. Cheles has discerned the origin of this
phrase in Virgil's Aeneid (156) as "macte nova virtute, puer: sic itur ad astra (A blessing, child, on
thy young valour! So man scales the stars)." Studiolo of Urbino, 63.
Note 48: Another of the progymnasmata exercises, the encomium offered "basic training" for
epideictic rhetoric, although it was also useful in deliberative and forensic oratory. Kennedy, New
History of Classical Rhetoric, 205. Even before Guidobaldo could read the choice morsels displayed
in the studioli, he would have memorized them according to oral methods of instruction like those
practiced at the Ca' Zoiosa.
Note 49: Composed in 1480, this treatise was incorporated as the first volume of Ficino's Book of
Life.
Note 50: Thornton, Scholar in His Study, 120. During the 1480s, Poliziano corresponded with
Lodovico Odasio, the tutor for Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and
Malatesta, 38.
Note 51: "The custom of all the gentlemen of the house was to betake themselves straightway after
supper to my lady Duchess; where, among the other pleasant pastimes and music and dancing that
continually were practised, sometimes neat questions were proposed, sometimes ingenious games
were devised at the choice of one or another, in which under various disguises the company disclosed
their thoughts figuratively to whom they liked best. Sometimes other discussions arose about different
matters, or biting retorts passed lightly back and forth." Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 12.
Note 52: From the dedicatory letter to Lord Dom Miguel de Silva, bishop of Viseu. Castiglione, Book
of the Courtier, 2. The tradition of ut pictura poesis, described in Horace's Art of Poetry, and
Aristotle's mimesis historia, the imitation of human events discussed in Poetics, is embedded in
Alberti's articulation of istoria. In the second book of De pictura, Alberti forms an analogy between
painting and writing, comparing design with plot and colors with characters. For Alberti, the plot is
more important than the characters and the overall composition is more important than the colors.
In a historical detail that speaks eloquently of this figural interplay and its pertinence at Urbino,
Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, was simultaneously court painter and court poet.
Note 53: Vitruvius, De architectura, 3.Preface.1. "Natural" talent remains a subject of intense
speculation, precipitating such recent theories as Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences."
Gardner, Frames of Mind.
Note 54: Ficino, Book of Life, 3.8.110. Ficino's integration of ancient and eastern wisdom with
Christian doctrine required a line of argument that drew on the writings of exemplary authorities,
such as Aquinas and Albertus Magnus. To validate astrology, a delicate subject, Ficino recounts the
wisdom of the three Magi, who "came with a star guiding them, to Christ, the guide of life." Book of
Life, 2.19.78.
Note 55: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 261. Alberto Prez-Gmez has discerned this metaphor in
the writings of Fra Luca Pacioli, who "reminds us that Pythagoras's discovery of the proportions of
the right-angled triangle is absolutely indispensable to build vertically and even to recognize justice,
'for without it, it is impossible to know the difference between good and evil, or to obtain any certain
measure in our works.'" "Glass Architecture," 268.
Note 56: "Passive acceptance of instruction was an infallible sign of an inattentive, dull, or lazy
mind." Origo, "Education," 61.
Note 57: Publicius distinguishes between memory (natural) and recollection (artificial) but for clarity
of exposition addresses them together as "memory." Art of Memory, 12.

Note 58: Lokhorst and Kaitaro, "Descartes' Theory," 8. Ben Luca adds that the quality of spirit in
the brain also influences intelligence: "It is subtle and clear in some, and these people are rational, of
a thoughtful disposition and intelligent. But in some people it has a bad quality, and these are insane,
irrational, shallow and stupid." "Descartes' Theory," 9.
Note 59: Despite confusing the pineal gland with the vermis, Ibn al-Jazzar agrees in principle with
ben Luca. Lokhorst and Kaitaro, "Descartes' Theory," 10.
Note 61: Schevill, First Century of Italian Humanism, 74.
Note 62: Tomlinson, Music in Renaissance Magic, 10515.
Note 66: Bolzoni, Gallery of Memory, 87109.
Note 67: Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics 1103a 17ff. (I.V. #2058). "Trained memory," Carruthers
notes, invoking Aquinas, "is 'one of the conditions required for prudence,' an integral or enabling part
of the virtue." Book of Memory, 69; Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 111 Q. 56, art. 5, obj. 3. Aquinas
draws a ratio between prudence and the arts: "Prudence stands in the same relation to . . . human
acts, which lie in the effective application of powers and habits, as art does to external productions."
Summa theologiae, 111 Q. 57, art. 4, cited in Book of Memory, 65. See also Summers's discussion of
prudence in Judgment of Sense, 26682.
Note 68: Illich, Vineyard of the Text, 33n17. Aquinas continues this praise: "Man has by nature his
reason and his hands, which are the organs of organs, since by their means man can make for himself
instruments of an infinite variety and for any number of purposes." Summa theologiae, 1. 76.5 ad 4,
and 1. 91.3 ad 4. See also Summers, Judgment of Sense, 213: "Francesco di Giorgio insisted that the
soul is not a power of the body but is rather incorporeal and it is from the nature of the soul that the
differences arise between the artifacts of animals and man. Whereas the 'building' of swallows, bees,
and spiders are always the same, the inventions of the human intellect are 'almost infinite, infinitely
various.' Referring to the designs of castles . . . Francesco writes that 'tutte le fortezze che nella mente
occorrano continuamente, sarebbe un processo in infinito. (All of the fortresses that continually
occur to the mind would proceed into infinity.)'" Martini, Trattati, 48283, 5056.
Note 69: Ornare, to fit out, equip, adorn. The mnemonic role of architectural ornament casts a
different light on Alberti's seemingly contradictory discussion of concinnitas, whereby an architectural
construct is conceived as an irreducible whole, yet structure is distinguished from ornament. The
complications may stem from a matter of translation (and habituation). Mary Carruthers notes,
"Bede uses the verbs ornare and decorare throughout his description [of meditational picturae]; they
are untranslatable in modern English, since we insist on conceptually separating decoration from
function. In Latin, these verbs encompassed both." Craft of Thought, 205.
Note 70: Onians, Origins of European Thought, 34348.
Note 71: From De ingenuis moribus, cited by Schevill, First Century of Italian Humanism, 69.
Note 72: Chambers, Patrons and Artists, 183.
Note 73: Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and Malatesta, 75.
Note 75: Federico's patrons included Lorenzo de' Medici and the humanist popes Nicholas V, Pius II,
and Sixtus IV, for whom knowledge and history were perceived quite literally as armament.
Note 76: "Architekton, 'chief maker,' 'master builder.'" Aristotle, Politics, I.13, 1260a14.

Note 78: Augustine, Confessions, 10.8.

Note 79: The debate over the relation of practice and theory was well worn by the time of Vitruvius,
as evidenced in De architectura, 1.1.2.
Note 80: Marco Frascari has wittily noted that theory and practice are like Siamese twins, which if
permitted to coexist undivided have a better chance of survival than when they are separated.
Likewise, according to Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 202, praxis and theoria
regarded also as action and contemplationare distinct yet inseparable in Christian wisdom.
Note 81: "Thoughts cannot be made without the materials in memory." Carruthers, Book of
Memory, 34.
Note 83: Research has established that the fabrication of this matrix is neither purely theoretical nor
merely metaphorical. As Wilder Penfield discovered in the 1950s, much of the brain is connected not
to the sensors along the body's surface (skin, eyes, ears) but instead to a representation of the body
(the "homunculus") that is mapped directly onto the surface of the brain. In other words, in our daily
peregrinations, the mind functions by creating a small representation of "itself." Sensual stimuli are
gathered from throughout the body and conveyed through neural centers to this homunculus, which
then serves as a switchboard for the rest of the brain. Current research focuses on the degree to
which the homunculus may be trained in a child or retrained in an adult. See Ramachandran and
Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain.
Note 85: From Cicero to Publicius, invention of the art of memory was attributed to the pre-Socratic
poet Simonides of Ceos, who was called upon to "re-member" the instant before the catastrophic
conclusion to his recitation for the guests of a banquet. For the full account, see Cicero De oratore
2.86: I.V. #447, and the first chapter of Yates, Art of Memory.
Note 86: Aristotle De memoria 449b.30.
Note 87: Aristotle De memoria 450a.1015 (I.V. #214, 215). Luca Pacioli reiterates this notion in his
Divina proportione: "Nothing can be grasped by the intellect unless it has been previously offered to
perception in some way." See Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture," 8.
Note 90: Pacioli, Divina proportione, ed. C. Winterburg, 35.
Note 91: Cicero's description of wisdom as sapientia (from sapere, to taste) represents a deep
association between taste and judgment.
Note 92: In 1490. Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 166.
Note 93: Leonardo, Treatise on Painting, 1.34.
Note 94: Oxford English Dictionary.
Note 95: Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 178, 331n23. Also Bolzoni, Gallery of Memory, 87109.
Note 96: Cusa, De visione Dei, 43.
Note 97: Publicius, Art of Memory, 19. Bayerle and Carruthers note that this phrase is transcribed
almost verbatim from Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2.2.49.2.
Note 98: The Oxford English Dictionary defines iconography as "the description or illustration of
any subject by means of drawings or figures."
Note 99: In his discussion of memory images, Publicius states simply "extreme things excite the
human senses and the human mind with greater force than do average things." Art of Memory, 19.
Recent brain research has identified the amygdalaetwo small almond-shaped sections of the

temporal lobeas emotional processors at the heart of memory activity. V. S. Ramachandran and
Sandra Blakeslee note that the amygdalae are wired directly to the senses, including the skin and
viscera, and play a central role in self-perception. Phantoms in the Brain, 24445, 247.
Note 100: Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 151.
Note 101: Plato, Theatetus, 197d. Marsilio Ficino's translation of this work was included in his
Commentary on Plato's Convivium . . . de amore (I.V. #221).
Note 102: De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum; Carruthers, Book of Memory, app. A, 261.
Inventory and invention bear the same etymological origins. This kinship is fundamental to the
tradition of memory-training; inventive thought could not occur without a careful inventory of the
materials of experience within the memory. Book of Memory, 33.
Note 103: "Nesting" entails the placement of memory images one within the next, as in a Russian
matrioshka doll. "Concatenation" consists of forging links by which to construct extended chains,
such as the ancient catena aurea, or Golden Chain.
Note 104: "The word forulos is of uncertain derivation, but foros, of which it is clearly the
diminutive, is used by Virgil for the cells of bees." Clark, Care of Books, 31. "Complebuntque foros et
floribus horrea texent." Virgil Georgics 4.250 (I.V. #492).
Note 105: Loculamentum is used by Columella to describe the cells for birds' nests and beehives and
by Vitruvius as a small box in which is placed a mechanism for measuring distances. Columella De re
rustica 8.8, 9.12.2, respectively: I.V. #438; Vitruvius, De architectura, 10.9.2.
Note 106: Hugh of St. Victor, De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum, cited by Carruthers, Book
of Memory, 262, 347.
Note 107: One might safely describe these details as monstrous, since they provided the memory
with visual cues by which to demonstrate (de + mostrare, to show) thoughts. For a rich discussion of
this notion, see Frascari, Monsters of Architecture.
Note 109: Vitruvius, De architectura, 6.5.1.
Note 110: Granger, Introduction to Vitruvius's De architectura, 2:xxv.
Note 111: Granger, "Vitruvius and the Craftsmen of Rome," De architectura, 2:xxv.
Note 112: The cubiculum is discussed below in this chapter. For a wealth of information on the flora
and fauna of the Roman garden, see Farrar, Ancient Roman Gardens.
Note 113: Virgil Georgics 42.243 (I.V. #492).
Note 114: Proverbs 6:8: "Go to the bee."
Note 115: Illich, Vineyard of the Text, 5458. With the advent of the computer, the buzz of bees has
been transformed into a fluttering of butterflies or moths. With an undercurrent of rustling keypads,
spaces such as the New York Public Research Library's cavernous reading room now resemble more
closely a cave of butterflies than a hive of scholars.
Note 116: Publicius, Art of Memory, 32. For a medieval scholar "reading is to be digested, to be
ruminated, like a cow chewing her cud, or like a bee making honey from the nectar of flowers.
Reading is memorized with the aid of murmur, mouthing the words subvocally as one turns the text
over in one's memory; both Quintilian and Martianus Capella stress how murmur accompanies
meditation. It is this movement of the mouth that established rumination as a basic metaphor for
memorial activities. The process familiarizes a text to a medieval scholar, in a way like that by which
human beings may be said to 'familiarize' their food. It is both physiological and psychological, and it
changes both the food and its consumer." Also: "Familiar is . . . a synonym of domesticare, that is, to
make something familiar by making it a part of your own experience." Carruthers, Book of Memory,
164.

Note 117: Coincidentally, in 1625 the Academia dei Lincei, one of the early scientific academies,
published the first book to include images rendered with aid of a microscope, entitled Melissografie,
a tract on bees. In 1629, Joachim Frizius published Summum bonum, a defense of Rosicrucianism,
which was prefaced by the motto "Dat Rosa Mel Apibus" (The rose gives the bees honey). The rose
depicted beneath the motto has seven petals in each of its five concentric rings. Fifty years later, the
bee was a favorite subject for the pioneering entomologist Jan Swammerdam.
Note 119: Cooper, Illustrated Encyclopaedia, 128.
Note 122: For an account of tulipomania, see Herbert, Still Life with a Bridle, 3861.
Note 123: Platina, On Right Pleasure, 10.14.199.
Note 124: Pliny, Historia naturalis, 9.59.
Note 125: Platina states, however, that unio refers to "unique" because "nowhere are two found
like." On Right Pleasure, 10.14.199.
Note 126: The ducal library possessed several works attributed to Theophrastus (372287 bce): I.V.
#211, 231, graec. 48, 75. Kunz and Stevenson, Book of the Pearl, 8.
Note 127: "According to Capella," Prez-Gmez notes, "the monad is all that is good, desirable and
essentiala notion that was explicitly introduced into Renaissance theology by Nicholas of Cusa in
his influential work De docta ignorantia." "Glass Architecture," 248. Cusa describes the sight of God
as an "eye of sphericity . . . of infinite perfection." De visione Dei, 38.
Note 128: Pliny and Aelianus quoted Megasthenes. Kunz and Stevenson, Book of the Pearl, 11.
Note 132: Kunz and Stevenson, Book of the Pearl, 9; also Pliny, Historia naturalis, 37.2.
Note 133: Pliny, Historia naturalis, 9.35.
Note 134: In Piero's dyptich of the Duke and Duchess Montefeltro, Battista is shown wearing a pearl
necklace.
Note 135: Notably, the crest of this arch is immediately adjacent to the words "montis feretri" in the
fictive architrave text that runs continuously through the architectural space of the seven paintings.
"Montis Feretri" is a reference to the origins of the Montefeltro family, and the entire passage is a
direct quotation of the text in the Urbino studiolo.
Note 136: "A soul placed far from God creates a kind of machine, that by its means [the soul] may
be lifted to God." Gregory the Great, Expositio in cantincum canticorum, 3.1415. As cited by
Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 81.
Note 137: Heuristics (or heuretics) is both an art of finding and an art of invention. For discussion of
this ambivalence, see Summers, Judgment of Sense, 3241. For a comparison of heuristics with
hermeneutics and iconography, see Carruthers, Book of Memory, 1921.
Note 138: Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job (I.V. #65), Prologue: "Epistola ad Leandrum," 3
Corpus Christianorum, series latina 143, 4.11014. Also Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 18. In 1480, the
Vatican librarian Bartolomeo Platina, a colleague of Federico's, edited Moralia in Job for printing.
Note 139: Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon. See also Illich's commentary, Vineyard of the Text.
Note 140: Carruthers, Book of Memory, 162.
Note 141: Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon (I.V. #87), 3.710 (trans. J. Taylor, 9293).

Note 142: Commentarium in Ezekiel 3.5 (I.V. #25). Also Carruthers, Book of Memory, 44.
Note 143: Confessions, 10.14. Also Illich, Vineyard of the Text, 86.
Note 144: The catena aurea appears in Plato's Theatetus (153d), translated by Ficino and included in
the ducal library as part of the Commentary of Plato's Convivium . . . de amore (I.V. #221). Plotinus
interprets the chain of gold as the chain of Being. Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being, 2. The chain also
appears in Macrobius's Somnium Scipionis (I.V. #57174), as well as in Paul of Middleburg's
Paulina, da recta Paschae celebratione (1513). This last work was composed for the Lateran Council
of 1513, during which the calendar was revised and the immortality of the soul was decreed church
dogma. Earlier in his life, Paul served as a copyist for Cicero's Orations (Vat. lat. 1742). For more of
the catena aurea, see Leclerq, Love of Learning, 7677. The mnemonic lineage of the catena aurea
adds new dimensions to the valuable information provided by Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the
Court of Urbino," 78.
Note 145: Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 79.
Note 146: Aquinas's Catena aurea (I.V. #12729) was also present in another significant
quattrocento library, that of Cardinal Bessarion (#B78687). Labowsky, Bessarion's Library, 49.
Note 147: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, I.V. #79. Mary Carruthers has noted that Cicero used "the
same word, notatio, both to translate Greek etymologia and for the mnemonically valuable 'notes' or
'marks' that are the tools of memory work." Craft of Thought, 15565.
Note 148: In his discussion of lumen in Hugh's Didascalicon, Illich observes how the translucency of
the sheep- or goatskin parchment in manuscripts transmits the illuminating glow of a candle to the
inflamed reader. Vineyard of the Text, 1721.
Note 149: As a remnant of this tradition, most names of birds are phonetically cast from the songs
they produce. By contrast, the Oxford English Dictionary casts doubt over the kinship of
homophonic terms.
Note 150: Hugh of St. Victor, De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum, cited by Carruthers, Book
of Memory, 261. Hugh's conflation of heart/boat/sanctuary was facilitated not only by the term arca
but also through the interplay of the cluster of terms naus/naos/nous. Navis is the root for
navigational (boat) terminology, as well as the nave of a cathedral. Naos is the central-most sanctuary
of Greek temples in general and the "heart" of the Temple of Solomon in particular. Furthermore,
nous represents the fluid intelligence of the mind. According to Plotinus, nous is the highest sphere
accessible to the human mind and thus the "objective" of contemplation. See Padel, In and Out of the
Mind, and Onians, Origins of European Thought, as well as the Oxford English Dictionary.
Note 151: De arca Noe morali, 1, 2; 176, 622B, as cited by Carruthers, Book of Memory, 44. For in-
depth discussion of Hugh's puns, see Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 24345.
Note 152: Illich describes Hugh's Ark as "a many-tiered floating box, with staircases and ladders,
rafters and spars. This imaginary raft serves Hugh as an immense, three-dimensional bulletin board.
The mast and rudder, each separate part of each door frame, is present to him in every detail. And to
each of these structural elements he has attached a memory of a thing. Whatever juicy morsel he has
picked up on his pilgrimage through the pages of a book has been pinned by him to a spot of the ark
to which he can reach out when he meditates in the dark. With his adult pupils he insists that the
monk has left his abode on earth; that he sails through historia with historia's modelthe Ark of
Noahfloating in his heart." Illich, "Mnemosyne: The Mold of Memory," in Mirror of the Past, 188.
Note 154: Raymond Lull's combinatorial wheels, with their cabalistic influences, were adopted by
Franciscans as a mnemonic device for oration and divine inquiry and as a counterpart to the "places
and images" memory scheme practiced by Aquinas and the Dominicans. The most complex Lullian

wheel, the figura universalis, comprised 14 concentric wheels that, if quartered, could generate 414
(or 268,435,456) permutations. As a result, these wheels are often characterized as the heart of
cybernetic evolution.
Note 155: Mary Carruthers tempers Frances Yates's perception of hermetic practices in Lull's
combinatory wheels, stating that they "were a common feature of the medieval elementary
classroom, precisely for the purpose of memory training." Book of Memory, 253. In the ducal library,
an entry for Raymond Lull's Ars brevis (the abbreviated version of his art of memory) is dated 1485:
Urb. lat. #1442.
Note 156: As Henry Bayerle and Mary Carruthers have noted in their introduction to Publicius's Art
of Memory, 5, these illustrations do not always fit the text precisely and should be seen, therefore, as
"representing the general memory tradition of the 15th century and not as the specific product of
Jacobus."
Note 157: Augustine, Confessions, 11.5. See Carruthers, Craft of Thought, esp. chap. 1.
Note 158: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 19.8.12 (I.V. #79). Etymologically, the master mason
was not only the chief stonecutter but also the "master of machines."
Note 159: "The machine of the mind is the energy of love." Also, "Indeed the vigor of love is a
machine of the mind which, while [the mind] draws away from the world, lifts it on high." Gregory
the Great, Moralia in Job; Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 23, 81.
Note 162: Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon, 6.4 (ed. Buttimer, 118.1316, 118.2022, 119.46).
Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 1621.
Note 163: 1 Corinthians 3:9. Also Augustine, Confessions, 10.16.
Note 165: There were three copies of Augustine's City of God in Urbino's ducal library (I.V. #40, 41,
58). See also Augustine's Confessions, 12.15.
Note 166: Augustine, Confessions, 11.28, 12.16.
Note 167: "Isidore of Seville defines a picture as 'an image expressing the semblance [speciem] of
something' which, when seen again, will recall to mind some matter that one wants to remember.
Pictura, Isidore continues, is etymologically related to fictura, that is, an image for the purpose of
shaping or fixing something in the mind." Carruthers, Book of Memory, 200. Picturae were also
referred to as mappae.
Note 168: In memory training, silva, the forest, represented confused and disordered material.
Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 261. This notion has continued in modern Italian through the idiomatic
expression imboscata, to be confused, or literally, "in the woods."
Note 170: J. -P. Antoine, "Mmoire, lieux et invention," 144769.
Note 171: On picturae and tabulatum, see Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 198205.
Note 173: Aristotle places the sensus communis in the arche of the heart, while Leonardo locates it
in the central chamber of the brain. More on this subject is offered by Summers, Judgment of Sense,
71109.

CHAPTER FIVE
Adumbration: Cosm(et)ology and the Gubbio Studiolo

ASPICIS.ETERNOS.VENERANDE.MATRIS.ALUMNOS.
DOCTRINA.EXCELSOS.INGENIOQ.VIROS.
UT.NUDA.CERVICE.CADANT.ANTE.[ORA.PARENTIS.
SUPPLIC]ITER.FLEXO.PROCUBUERE.GENU.
IUSTITIA.PIETAS.VINCIT.REVERENDA.NEC.ULLUM.
POENITET.ALTRICI.SUCCUBUISSES.SUE.
You see how the eternal students of the Venerable Mother

Men exalted in learning and in genius
Fall forward, suppliantly with bared head
And bended knee, before [the face of their parent].
With the help of Justice, reverend Piety prevails
And none regrets having submitted to his foster mother.1
ASPICIS, the first word of Veterani's distich in the 1

Fig. 5.1. Northwest wall, Gubbio
studiolo. Gubbio studiolo, has been translated as "see how"; ad-
spic-ere signifies "to look at."2 For the late quattrocento
this term also evoked associations to meditation, astronomy, and divination that might elude
modern translation. In medieval prayer, aspectus represented a concentrated state of "inner
seeing" that drew on the sensuousness of physical ornament for its emotional focus
(affectus).3 Though not commonly used, the astronomical connotations persist; for example,
the various meanings of aspect include "the relative positions of the heavenly bodies as they
appear to an observer on the Earth's surface at a given time." Aspect also signifies "the way in
which the planets, from their relative positions, look upon each other" as well as "their joint
look upon the Earth."4 The interplay of geometry, optics, and spirituality here is transparent.
In the third volume of the Book of Life, a treatise on astrobiological medicine written across 2
the 1480s, Marsilio Ficino compares the celestial bodies to "eyes" that transmit the generative
spiritor quintessenceof the worldly soul (anima mundi) to the Earth by rays of light
according to Euclidean geometry.5 These rays were believed to enter and influence a person's
spirit through the window of the eye.6 Like the providential vision of Nicholas of Cusa's all-
seeing God, the spirit of the worldly soul could penetrate to the innards of animals and the
earth itself, transmuting their hidden contents into precious metals, stones, and gems that
assist humankind in the art of living well.7 Since the influence of heavenly rays could be both
harmful and beneficial, they required careful mediation through medicine, architecture, and
cosmological images.8 Ficino's warnings on this matter are inlaid in Leonardo's subsequent
comparison of doctors and architects: "Just as doctors . . . should understand what man is,
what life is, what health is . . . and in what manner a balance and concordance of elements will

Architecture and Memory Chapter Five Robert Kirkbride
preserve health, while their discordance will destroy it . . . [t]he same is necessary for an
invalid building, that is, a doctor-architect who has a good knowledge of what a building is and
from which rules good building derive."9
In 1462, Ficino decorated the Medici villa at Careggi 3

Fig. 5.2. Ceiling of Urbino studiolo
(home to the Platonic Academy) with astrological in late afternoon light.
signs,10 an ornamental scheme also found in frescoes of
the Sala dei Mesi at the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara (1470),11 and in ceilings of the Medici
palace at Florence (1456), whose lapis lazuli and gold-leaf ornament offered admirers a
sparkling abstraction of the starry sky.12 We can imagine a similar heavenly apparition in the
gold and sapphire ceiling of the Urbino studiolo, especially when illuminated by a setting sun
or candlelight. The ceiling of the Gubbio studiolo, meanwhile, represents an even more subtle
cosm(et)ology.
In a chapter dedicated to making a figure of the universe, Ficino recommends that his readers 4
set up, deep inside their houses, a little room decorated with figures and colors that evoke the
generative and protective influences of the heavens. Green, he writes, represents Venus and
the Moon, whose moist natures are "appropriate to things of birth," such as thoughts. The
Apollonian sun is represented by gold, and the jovial influence of Jupitervital, Ficino
emphasizes, to counteract Saturn's melancholyis captured by sapphire, the color of lapis
lazuli and ultramarine. Also effective against Saturn's black bile are coral (red) and chalcedony
(milky gray). Elsewhere in the Book of Life, Ficino associates purple with a safer, diluted form
of Saturn's humor that, like the influence of Mars, may be used as a homeopathic
pharmakon.13 To assist in contemplation and judgment, Ficino recommends that these colors
be worn as clothing and applied in architectural ornament.
Each of these colorsgold, green, blue, red, purple, and 5

Fig. 5.3. Detail of ceiling, Gubbio
studiolo. grayis found in the ceiling of the Gubbio studiolo,
whose interlocking geometries evoked for its
quattrocento occupants a well-tempered distribution of divine influences.14 To draw the
worldly spirit into oneself required the purgation of one's inner spirit, according to the
virtuous images and texts ingrained in the walls of the studioli.15 While filtering the
deleterious aspects of the heavens and one's own character, the architecture of the Gubbio
studiolo embodied a garden of earthly experience and a mechanism for divine contemplation.
Whether metaphorically lifted by the machina of aedificatio or elevated by the virtues and
colors of architectural ornament, contemplation was characterized as an ascent from the
earthly body and was accounted for in physiological terms. Following the pneumatic model of
Avicenna, Ficino writes: "The blood . . . is affected by a natural power, which thrives in the
liver and stomach. The thinnest part of the blood flows into the fountain of the heart, where a
vital power flourishes. The spirits [pneuma] of the mind are created there, and, as I shall
show, there the ramparts of Minerva [sensual wisdom] rise. In these, an animal force, that is
for feeling and moving, dominates. That is why contemplation is so much more than an

obedience of the senses."16 Instead of "see how," then, kindred terms such as contemplate or
consider reflect more accurately the astrological attributes of aspicere and, more generally,
the astrobiomechanical role of the studioli imagery and architecture in the contemplative
practices of the Montefeltro dukespractices that were at once ancient, medieval, and
unprecedented.
Fig. 5.4. The Madonna of Fig. 5.5. Detail from Piero della
Senigallia, after Piero della Francesca's Brera Altarpiece.
Francesca. Extended Caption 21
Extended Caption 21
Fig. 5.6. Glass mirror and vessels,

Urbino studiolo.
Extended Caption 21

Notes
Note 1: Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 93.

Note 2: Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "aspicis."
Note 3: In his Sermons on the Song of Songs (I.V. #75), Bernard of Clairvaux describes the mental
and emotional discipline necessary for aspectus (Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 84). Also 303n83:
"Recall that memory is always described as a type of affectus and inner aspectus."
Note 4: Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "aspect."
Note 5: For Ficino's distinctions between soul and spirit, see Book of Life, 3.14; Tomlinson, Music
in Renaissance Magic, chap. 4; and Summers, Judgment of Sense, 1089. "The effects of the
heavens work especially well through a straightness of the rays and the angles." Book of Life,
3.18.145.
Note 6: "The organs sense nothing but are rather channels through which a 'certain power of the
soul' senses things. By this 'certain power of the soul" Ficino understands Plato to mean a sensus
communis, upon which all sensation converges. Ficino joins a long tradition of comparing the
common sense to the center of a circle, joined by lines to its circumference." Summers, Judgment of
Sense, 1089. An empathy of common sense binds these centers together, evoking Cusa's image of
God, whose center is "everywhere" (in the sensus communis located in each human being) and whose
circumference, being unlimited, is "nowhere."
Note 7: In animals the rays were believed to produce medicinal bezoar stones: "The stones which are
born in animals, and not in weak ones but snakes, roosters, and swallows, are as effective as other
stones. Like stones born in the earth, which refer back to their stars, these stones refer back to stars,
too, through their animals." Ficino, Book of Life, 3.15.135, 3.12.123.
Note 8: According to Ficino, a healthy spirit is a combination of solar, venereal, jovial, and mercuric
humors, with little influence from Saturn, Mars, or the Moon, "or it would be stupid (Saturn), furious
(Mars), and obtuse (Moon)." Book of Life, 3.11.118.
Note 9: As cited by Galluzzi, Renaissance Engineers, 238.
Note 10: By this path of inquiry, Ficino followed Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and Pietro d'Abano,
while complementing the efforts of his contemporary Guglielmo Raimondo de Moncada (Flavius
Mithridates), who composed a treatise on astrological influences for Duke Federico in 1481 and later
instructed Pico della Mirandola in cabalistic practices at Perugia in 1486. At Pico's suggestion, Ficino
composed the third book of the Book of Life (1489), which harmonized astrobiological notions of
Arab and Jewish doctors with Christian tenets. A wealth of the authors and works cited by Ficino
were present in the ducal library.
Note 11: Composed to celebrate Borso d'Este's elevation to duke, this expansive fresco cycle is
arranged according to the twelve months, in three horizontal levels. The realm of the gods is depicted
above, with human affairs shown (according to season) below, and intermediating images of the
zodiac between. Quintilian Institutio oratoria 11.2.22, and Publicius, Art of Memory, 19, include the
zodiac as a source for memory images.
Note 12: These admirers included Filarete; see Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 105.
Note 13: Citing Ptolemy's Centiloquio, Ficino says that the influences of Mars and Saturn, like
certain poisons, could be used beneficially in moderate doses. Book of Life, 3.2.93.
Note 14: Ficino's comments on colors reflect interests shared with the Urbino court and suggest his
familiarity with the studioli. They are culled from pages 1.6.10, 3.12.123, and 3.19.153 of the Book of
Life. See Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 105, and Wilmering's rigorous examination in Gubbio Studiolo,
2:16375.

Note 15: "Everything we have been talking about comes down to this, that our spirit, when it is
correctly prepared and cleansed through the things of nature, can receive from the spirit of worldly
life a great deal through the rays of the stars." The spirit, Ficino also writes, is often infected by "the
filth in your soul, on your skin, on your clothes, in your house, or in the air." Book of Life, 3.11.115,
3.4.96.

CHAPTER SIX
The Urbino Studiolo as an Engine for Governance

And when the night arrives, I return home, and enter into my studiolum; and on
the threshold I take off that everyday costume, and put on royal and curial vests;
and thus I enter into the ancient courts of those ancient men, where I am lovingly
accepted by them, and where I can feed upon that food that is only mine, for
which I was born; where I do not feel ashamed to speak with them and ask them
about the reasons of their deeds; and they humanely reply to me; and for those
hours I do not feel any dullness, forget every affliction, I'm not afraid of poverty,
and not anxious of death: I entirely rely upon them.
Niccol Machiavelli, from a letter to Francesco Vettori, 10 December 1513
6.1 The Duke's Private Percorso
Fig. 6.1. Federico da Montefeltro in Fig. 6.2. The city of Urbino and the
the robes of a humanist scholar. ducal palace.
Urbino Day
From Vespasiano da Bisticci's biography for Federico da Montefeltro, we can imagine an ideal 1
summer day for the duke of Urbino, were it ever to have happened, as follows. By dawn's light,
unarmed, he would ride out from the palace with a handful of men for morning exercises in
the surrounding countryside, returning as others were just beginning to stir. After
dismounting, he would attend Mass with his household and townsfolk, since he was "before
all things most devout and observant in his religious duties." Afterward, Federico would go
into a garden with its doors open to provide counsel to all who wished it, until lunch, when he
would join a gathering of up to five hundred guests, citizens and members of the household,
including the sons of noblemen committed to the duke for military training.
As in a monastery, meals at the Urbino court were accompanied by a steady diet of literary 2
readings. "Some one would always read to him; during Lent a spiritual work, and at other
times the Histories of Livy, all in Latin." Montefeltro imposed a steady and modest diet for the
household; he ate "plain food and no sweetmeats, and drank no wine save that made from
such fruits as cherries, pomegranates or apples." Every day, without fail, a good quantity of
bread and wine was distributed to those in need. Federico also fasted according to all vigils
ordered by the Church, without exception, even when for reasons of health he had received
special dispensation from the pope.

Architecture and Memory Chapter Six Robert Kirkbride
At all hours, between the courses of meals as well, the duke gave audience to anyone who 3
wished, preferring to speak directly with citizens, and promptly resolving matters. After lunch,
he would go "into his closet to attend to his affairs and to listen to readings, according to the
season. At vespers he went forth again to give audience."
Early in the evening, he would visit the cloister of Sta. Chiara, which he had built, or the 4
convent of St. Francis, where in a large meadow he would observe thirty or forty of his young
men throwing the lance. When he felt necessary, "he would reprove them, in order that they
might do better. During these exercises anyone might address him." At the hour of supper
Federico would return with the youths to the palace to dine on exemplary food and texts.
After, he would challenge the youths under his tutelage to rise early for exercises the following
morning, and if there were no further requests for his counsel, "he would go with the leading
nobles and gentlemen into his closet and talk freely with them." Afterward, the duke would
climb to an observatory above the studiolo before retiring.1
Fig. 6.3. The turrets of the ducal Fig. 6.4. Axonometric detail of the
palace. Urbino ducal palace.
Fig. 6.5. View from loggia, outside

Urbino studiolo.
By drawing these slender but informative threads through spatial sequences in the palace, we 5
may speculate more roundly on the habitual uses of various chambers, including the studiolo.
Maria Pernis has proposed, for example, that the north turret2 (lowest of the two depicted in
fig. 6.4) was conceived as a spine for the duke's private percorso, a symbolic narrative that
"ascended" through the ducal palace from worldly action through physical and spiritual
purification to contemplative pursuits, recalling Aeneas's journey in Virgil's Aeneid.3 Before
such an ascent would be possible, however, Federico would have first descended (an act no
less symbolic) by the scala a lumaca,4 from his bedchambers on the piano nobile to the
stables three flights below, at the foundations of the palace.5
Fig. 6.6. The subterranean stables Fig. 6.7. Access from the stables to
at Urbino's ducal palace. the duke's thermal bath (left) and
private stairtower (right).
Fig. 6.8. The waters of the thermal

bath were heated by a kitchen
fireplace on the other side of the
wall.

Following his morning exercise, Federico could have enjoyed the benefits of his thermal bath 6
one of the earliest of its kind in the Renaissancemodeled by Francesco di Giorgio on
examples from Roman antiquity.6 Physical cleanliness, particularly of the hands, was enforced
in the five hundredperson household with a rigor that Pernis attributes to a life-threatening
malady Federico had contracted as a child.7 As stipulated in the Ordine et officij, an official
register of procedures at the ducal palace, everyonefrom Urbino's citizens to food handlers
and groomswere bound by a code of conduct and personal hygiene that was unusually
thorough for its time.8
The scopetta, one of the devices ubiquitous to the 7

Fig. 6.9. Scopetta, north wall,
Urbino studiolo. Montefeltro palaces, underscores a perceived symmetry
between physical and moral purity. Found in an
intarsiated pilaster-capital at Urbino and depicted as an object and emblem in both studioli,
the scopetta had been absorbed into the emblems of the Montefeltro through Federico's
marriage to Battista Sforza in 1460. At Urbino, a whisk broom is suspended from a nail inside
a cabinet in the north wall, where it shares the company of manuscripts by "TVLIO" (Cicero)
and "NACA" (Seneca). At Gubbio, the scopetta provides a double reference to the duchess
Battista: in addition to its heraldic associations with the Sforza, the scopetta is encircled with
pearls, one of the duchess's favorite items. Pearls also adorn the young Guidobaldo in official
portraits, likely in remembrance of Battista, who died from pneumonia shortly after giving
birth to the prince.9
Fig. 6.10. The duke's private spiral Fig. 6.11. Entrance to the
staircase. Tempietti.
Spiral stairs, Urbino: the duke's Urbino Tempietti

descent and ascent
Proceeding to the floor above, Federico would have visited the tempietti, twin chambers 8
located directly above the bath and beneath the studiolo. The conditional tense would have is
significant: Federico did not have the opportunity to use the chapel, which was completed
after his death under Ottaviano's supervision.10 In fact, the tempietti are on the same level
(piano terra) as Ottaviano's personal suite of chambers. Before entering the vestibule to the
tempietti, an inscription announces to visitors that they stand at the entrance to the City of
God: "The person who seeks this sacred threshold with a pure heart, he seeks the shining
kingdom of the eternal heaven."11 An inscription in the small vestibule leading to the twin
chambers reads: "You see the twin 'sacelli' that are united together but with a slight
difference; one of them is dedicated to the Muses while the other is sacred to God."12

Fig. 6.12. Entrance to Capella del Fig. 6.13. Capella del Perdono, from
Perdono. entrance.
The Cappella del Perdono bears particular religious significance. By intercession of Ottaviano, 9
Pope Sixtus IV "granted a special indulgence to those who visited the Chapel on the Monday
after Easter."13 On this occasion, a reliquary known as Il Perdono, normally preserved above
the altar, was placed above the room's entrance to be to be venerated by a procession of
Urbino's citizens.14 Accordingly, an inscription on the architrave, from the Gospel of John
(20:2223), reads: "Receive the Holy Spirit and the sins of those you will forgive will be
forgiven."15
Aside from the sins Dante recounted in the social register of the Inferno,16 the Montefeltro 10
were respected for their piety, particularly for their support of the Franciscans.17 Federico's
"father" Guidantonio, a devout follower of Bernardino da Siena, had invited the saint to
preach two of his Quadragesimale at Urbino18 and was buried in a Franciscan habit in the
church of San Donato. In addition to sponsoring the construction of numerous monasteries
and convents for the order, Federico later commissioned di Giorgio to incorporate this older
structure into a new church that was consecrated for San Bernardino.
Fig. 6.14. Detail of The Effects of Fig. 6.15. Cabinet with hunting
Good Government. horn, Gubbio studiolo.
Fig. 6.16. Tau-shaped tuning key,

Gubbio studiolo.
Extended Caption 22
For the adjacent Tempietto delle Muse, the use of which is not as easily determined, several 11
artists, including Raphael's father, the court poet and painter Giovanni Santi, composed an
allegorical cycle of portraits of Apollo, Minerva, and the nine Muses. Remaining evidence,
including an inscription19 and eight portraits removed to the Corsini Gallery in Florence,20
points to a programmatic complementarity between the tempietti that Pernis attributes to the
direct influence of Marsilio Ficino. Where the Cappella del Perdono attends to spiritual purity,
the Tempietto delle Muse is dedicated to purity in philosophical and artistic inquiry.21
Further consideration should be given to a word in the 12

Fig. 6.17. The portraits of the
muses conceived for the Tempietto. vestibule's inscription. Sacella is a figurative term
signifying the treasury contained in one's mind. It is one
of a list of such terms, including saccula, cella, arca, thesaurus, forulus, loculumenta, cubilia,
and scrinium (to name but a few),22 that have been recently plumbed to reveal the depth and

continuity of the lineage of architectural mnemonics in the craft of Western thought. A gesture
to this tradition would be most appropriate at the threshold of a shrine for the daughters of
Mnemosyne.
In analyzing the tempietti, Luciano Cheles has noted that "what is most 'modern' about them 13
is the association of sacred and profane, for it proclaims a belief in the complementary nature
of the Christian and pagan traditions."23 Pernis asserts, with more precision, that the
chambers reconcile Christianity with Platonism. As implied in the inscription above the
threshold, these traditions remained distinct for the Urbino court yet reconciled by the image
of Augustine's City of God.24 The "use" of the Cappella del Perdono and Tempietto delle Muse
is thus highly symbolic; their adjacency enables, architectonically, a resolution of forms of
wisdom that were widely regarded as contradictory. The reconciliatory position taken by
Montefeltro in these delicate matters is evident throughout the palacein its physical
composition and ornamentation, in the contents of its library and the selected influences on
the court's scholarship and politics.
Fig. 6.18. Window seat in the Fig. 6.19. Urbino studiolo from
duke's dressing room. Federico's entrance.
One flight up from the tempietti, the duke would arrive in his dressing chamber for final 14
preparations before proceeding through the studiolo to the Sala d'Udienza.25 On entering the
studiolo, Federico would be greeted by the view of the ideal city in the east wall, surmounted
by images of Solomon and Aquinas. Drawing toward the center of the room, Federico would
see his armor to the left and the miniature studiolo to the right. Although the location of the
fictive city between recalls the reconciliatory tone from the tempietti below, the imagery of the
east wall alludes even more directly to one of several themes that enlace the studiolo.
6.2 On Action and Contemplation
The function of the studioli is not easily pinpointed: the rooms belong to a rubric of small 15
Renaissance chambers, designated by such interchangeable terms as gabinetto, cameretta,
scrittoio, and studietto, that were used by their patrons to overlapping and often uncategorical
ends.26 As apparent from Vespasiano's biography, the Urbino studiolo served various uses
throughout the day, ranging from reflective repose to matters of civil justice, political
negotiation, and leisurely conviviality. Each activity reflected a different facet of Federico's
brand of governance as duke of Urbino and the underlying influence of a well-rounded, or
"mixed," humanist education.
Immediate precedents to the studioli include the "studies" of Federico's mentorsPope 16

Nicholas V, Piero de' Medici, and Leonello d'Estewhich had been inspired by Petrarch's
writings on the benefits of solitude and leisure for intellectual pursuits.27 A popular image

from early in the 15th century, depicting Petrarch surrounded in his study by books and
instruments, offered artists such as Jan van Eyck, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Sandro
Botticelli a prototype for the portraiture of humanist scholars and Church Fathers.28 Leonello
d'Este described the appropriate provisions for studious preoccupations: "As well [as books] it
is not unseemly to have in the library an instrument for drawing up horoscopes or a celestial
sphere, or even a lute if your pleasure ever lies that way: it makes no noise unless you want it
to. Also decent pictures or sculptures representing gods and heroes. We often see, too, some
pleasant picture of St. Jerome at his writing in the wilderness, by which we direct the mind to
the library's privacy and quiet and the application necessary to study and literary
composition."29
Fig. 6.20. Petrarch, among the Fig. 6.21. St. Jerome, among the
illustrious men in the west wall of illustrious men in the north wall of
the Urbino studiolo. the Urbino studiolo.
The theme of privacy and quiet, a common thread among these chambers and their humanist 17
patrons, occupied one side of the ancient debate concerning the respective values of an active
and/or a contemplative life. For his part, Petrarch had resuscitated such classical authors as
Pliny the Younger, who in his private letters described his study"cubiculi mei"as located
near the bedroom and furnished with an armarium containing books to be read "over and
over again."30
Not coincidentally,31 Leon Battista Alberti, who reputedly dedicated an early version (1452) of 18
his De re aedificatoria to Federico,32 described that the husband's and wife's bedchambers
should be discreetly joined, with each leading to separate ancillary roomsthe wife's chamber
to a dressing room and the husband's into a library. At Urbino, the duke's and duchess's
bedchambers were linked by a private external balcony above hanging gardens. Federico's
rooms connected to the studiolo, whereas the duchess Battista's contained a private chapel.
Alberti was also occupied by the dialectic of the vita 19

Fig. 6.22. A passageway connecting
the duke's and duchess's quarters. activavita contemplativa.33 Through his own treatise
on the subject, De commodis literarum atque
incommodis,34 and a study of the Florentine family, Della famiglia,35 Alberti deeply
influenced a younger generation of powerful and wealthy soldier-scholars, including Leonello
d'Este and Federico, who negotiated their turbulent political climate as much by tactical
eloquence as by militaristic valor. The incentive among this new cultural elite to be equally
adept with pen and sword was expressed by Vespasiano: "It is difficult for a leader to excel in
arms unless he be, like the Duke [Montefeltro], a man of letters, seeing that the past is a
mirror of the present. A military leader who knows Latin has a great advantage over one who
does not."36

On a practical level, knowledge of Latin equipped a condottiere with an arsenal of historic 20

examples of Roman strategy in warfare: Vespasiano offers numerous examples of the
prudence with which Federico organized and executed his battle plans. More generally, for a
military leader with political aspirations, familiarity with letters was vital for matters of
governance and conducive to cultivating relations with such powerful scholarly patrons as the
humanist popes Nicholas V, Pius II, and Sixtus IV. In his memoirs, Pius II recalls a "sweet and
lively conversation" with Federico about the Trojan War during which the count, "who had
read much," asked if "the ancients wore armor similar to those of our times." Pius II
responded that "Homer and Virgil describe all sorts of arms which are still used in our days,
but also many others that have gone out of fashion."37
Understandably, Federico's historical interests included a keen curiosity toward ancient 21

weapons and machines, like those described by Vitruvius in book ten of De architectura. This
curiosity is memorialized at the entrance court of the ducal palace of Urbino, where 72 stone
formellae (tablets) were set into the back of a continuous stone bench that wraps the base of
the facciata ad ali (winged facade). Executed by Ambrogio Barrocci da Milano, the formellae
were carved in relief to represent war machines, hydraulic turbines, and various military and
architectural emblems from the sketchbooks of Francesco di Giorgio.38
Fig. 6.23. Triple hoist mechanism Fig. 6.24. "Unfinished" faade of

carving. Urbino's ducal palace.
Fig. 6.25. The second "wing" of the Fig. 6.26. Sala del Conversazione.
entry faade. Extended Caption 23
Extended Caption 23
The placement of these images in the public forecourt demonstrates the transparency between 22
the duke's endeavors and their direct influence on the health of Urbino and its citizens.
"Within his State, Federico's popularity stemmed not only from his benevolent rule, but also
from the very large profits derived from his activities as a condottiere, since they enabled him
to keep personal taxation at low levels."39 The matter of taxation had direct architectural
implications: Federico's colleaguesthe Sforza in Milan, the d'Este in Ferrara, and the
Malatesta in Riminiwere compelled to fashion their dwellings as fortresses in order to
protect themselves from their own citizens, who were often at arms over the lords' high
taxation.40
Fig. 6.27. Column hoist carving.

In addition to extensive construction elsewhere in the 23
dukedom, the Urbino palace was an active construction
site for much of Federico's final thirty years of life. This activity intensified between 1474 and
1478, when Federico's reputation, personal health, and earnings were at their zenith.

Mechanisms of architectural construction and destruction thus represented the source and
investment of Federico's (and the city's) wealth and health. By incorporating these images into
the palace facade, at the interface of public and private spheres, the duke and his architect
offered citizens a palpable reminder of the interdependence of the House of Montefeltro and
the city and lands of Urbino.41
This relationship is crystallized at the architectonic heart of Federico's governance, in the 24

studiolo, where images of the duke's weapons and armor are interspersed with books and
scholarly instruments. Resting against the underside of upturned bench seats we find a sword
near the door to the duke's bedchambers and a mace near the passageway to the Sala
d'Udienza. A particularly ferocious weapon, the mace symbolized Fortitude, the virtue of "true
courage" that, as Castiglione describes, "frees the mind from the passions that it not only fears
not dangers, but even pays no heed to them."42 This cardinal virtue, appropriate to a military
commander, is represented elsewhere in the studiolo and palace by two of the Montefeltro
imprese, an ostrich and an exploding grenade.
The ostrich, shown with a metal spike in its beak, 25

Fig. 6.28. Clavichord, inlaid with
represents tenacity: its accompanying motto, "Ican metal strings, Urbino studiolo.
Verdait En Crocisen," is a mangled rendering of the
German idiom "I can digest a large piece of iron." Introduced into Montefeltro heraldry by
Federico's grandfather Antonio, the device commemorated the reappropriation of the
Montefeltro territories after a long exile.43 Cheles has also suggested that the emblem's
proximity to the names of Cicero and Seneca accords with the philosophers' moral fiber.
The exploding grenade, displayed ubiquitously, was Federico's personal signature of 26

Fortitude.44 In addition to his tactical genius, Federico gained renown for his pioneering use
of field artillery against Bartolomeo Colleone and the Venetian forces in 1467.45 Numerous
sketches in di Giorgio's taccuino (sketchbook) speculate on the trajectory of missiles,
integrating ancient weaponry (scorpions and ballistae) with recent technological advances
such as perspective. In these drawings we recognize several instruments from the studioli
including the astrolabe, dividers, level, plumb line, and quadrantthat were common to the
quattrocento architect, military engineer, land surveyor, and astronomer. Matched with
Federico's strategic skills, the presence of these professionals and their provisions in the
theater of battle produced a formidable display that contemporaries regarded as "l'arte del
Duca d'Urbino."46
While praising Montefeltro's Fortitude, Vespasiano emphasizes Federico's "consummate" 27

powers of foresight, stating that the duke triumphed "less by his sword than by his wit."47
Shrewd deployment of learned references was essential to quattrocento politics and warfare.
In addition to their usefulness in arranging marriages,48 artfully composed letters were
considered invaluable to political negotiations, in which the pen often figured as prominently

as the sword. As evident in the studioli, utensils for letter writingincluding penne,49
sharpening knives, inkwells, and bottles (as well as eyeglasses)were essential provisions for a
quattrocento study.
Fig. 6.29. View to southeast corner Urbino Studiolo

of Urbino studiolo.
On first analysis, the composition of the studiolo manifests a clear, bilateral distinction 28
between action and contemplation. Federico's armor and a baton of command (action) are
located to the left of the city, while the miniature studiolo (contemplation) is to the right. The
portraits of the uomini illustri above, Cheles has noted, appear to correspond to this
dialectical arrangement. Cicero and Seneca (eloquence and political ethics) and Moses and
Solomon (justice and wisdom in human affairs) are placed above the armor niche, while
Homer and Virgil (epic poetry) and Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus (speculative wisdom)
are found above the faux studiolo. Diminutive figures of Hercules (accompanied by the
Nemean lion) and Atlas "support" this distinction.50 Hercules holds the active CiceroSeneca
and MosesSolomon in place, while Atlas supports the contemplative HomerVirgil and
Thomas AquinasDuns Scotus. In book 1 of Cristofero Landino's Disputationes
camaldulenses, an inquiry on the active and contemplative lives dedicated to Federico in the
winter of 1473, the character Alberti compares these two mythical figures: "Hercules was wise,
but not for himself; all mortals benefited from his wisdom. In fact, during his peregrinations,
which covered large parts of the world, he eliminated horrible wild beasts, tamed pernicious
and huge monsters, suppressed the most cruel tyrants, and brought back law and freedom to
many peoples and nations. Had he stayed with his tutor Atlas, who was devoted to a purely
idle wisdom, we would have had a sophist instead of Hercules."51
Although Federico's achievements were often characterized by contemporary poets as 29

Herculean, the overall disposition of the studiolo contents suggests an inclination of the
patron toward peaceful, contemplative pursuits. Whereas books and musical instruments
appear abandoned in mid-use, the sword and dagger are sheathed in their scabbards.
Likewise, Federico's armor has been removed and stored in an arrangement that recalls a
detail from The Virtues of Good Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. In this fresco, a pile of
martial armor offers a pillow for the reclining figure of Peace, who in seductive repose turns a
receptive ear and extends an olive branch to the viewer. Beside her, as part of an alternating
sequence of passive and active virtues, Fortitude is dressed for battle with mace and pavis in
hand.52
Examination of several details in the studiolo reveals a 30

the Allegory of Good Government. similar interweaving of action and contemplation.
Virginia Tenzer has noted that the surfaces against which
the sword and mace rest are decorated with vegetal traceries of olive, mustard, and mulberry.
The olive branch is associated with peace, the mustard plant with humility and faithfulness,

while the mulberry is an attribute of Minerva, goddess of practical wisdom and war. The
sword is itself a conflation of the "pen versus sword" dialectic. In addition to its use as a
weapon, the sword was a well-known symbol for the image of Justice (as depicted in the ducal
palace's Door of the Virtues) and also for the art of Rhetoric. In the ducal library's splendidly
illustrated manuscript of Martianus Capella's De nuptiis philologiae et mercurii, Rhetoric is
depicted carrying a sword and wearing armor beneath her robes.53 In the official portrait with
Guidobaldo, from 1476, Federico is similarly portrayed.
Throughout the studiolo, visual and linguistic ornament 31

Fig. 6.31. Double Portrait of
provides ductile channels for narrative interpretation. Federico and Guidobaldo da
Whether originating from the studiolo images according Montefeltro.
to an iconographic program or within the observer's
imagination from remembered associations or a combination of both, these interpretations
would be guided by rhetorical persuasion as a narrator deemed appropriate. To this end, the
images and their architectonic arrangement offered a theater of empathy (theos, seeing) for
the complementary influences of narrator and audience.
At the end of chapter two, I described several examples of etymological play and ethical 32
fabulation from imagery in the east wall. Further evidence of rhetorical play is found in the
basket of fruit in the central panel, where pomegranates burst with ripeness.54 From visual
and linguistic parallels between an exploding grenade and ripened pomegranate,55 we discern
a subtle reference to the interdependence of Duke Federico's leadership and the prosperity of
Urbino by the mutual benefits of action (war) and contemplation (peace). This theme encircles
the chamber in an ornamental interplay of olive branches (on the bench legs) and
pomegranates (on the corresponding pilaster bases behind).
From Federico's perspective, the narrative "significance" 33

Fig. 6.32. Close proximity of olive
branch and greave (peace and war). of these images could be tailored to the occasion. On one
hand, it might be emphasized that the dukedom
benefited from the duke's active skills at warfare. Conversely, it might as easily be presented
that Urbino's prosperity, exemplified by the palace, the studiolo, and the chamber's contents,
resulted from the peace secured by Montefeltro's prudent diplomacy. This might appear to be
a splitting of hairs, yet such distinctions were significant for such writers as Castiglione and
Alberti's protg Landino, who states: "It has not escaped you [Duke Federico] that those who
have written about social and civic life have divided the whole subject into peace-time and
war-time endeavours, pointing out that the first must be sought for their own sake, and the
other not for themselves at all but only to recover the first."56 Castiglione notes that the life of
the prince ought "to partake both of the active and of the contemplative, as much as may
comport with his people's weal."57
In Federico's time, war was not viewed pejoratively. For a condottiere in particular, the 34
delicate balance of war and peace was essential for the prosperity of the lands and people
under his protection, as well as the artists and scholars supported at his court. Imbalance

between modes of action and contemplation could cause severe repercussions.58 On a

practical level, if there were no prospects for battle or for preserving the peace, there would be
no lifeblood economy for cities such as Federico's Urbino and Malatesta's Rimini. If on the
other hand warfare were unceasing, resources would be diverted from such peaceful
intellectual pursuits as fabricating studioli. Castiglione notes: "To be always at war, without
seeking to arrive at the end of peace, is not permitted. . . . [I]t is a monstrous thing and worthy
of blame for men to show themselves valiant and wise in war and in peace and quiet to show
themselves ignorant and of so little worth that they know not how to enjoy their happiness."59
The virtuous prince, or condottiere, would comport most closely by his people's weal, it was
believed, by fighting for peace.
Examples of such prudent leadership were found in 35

Fig. 6.33. Intarsiated figures of
historical narratives and contemporary portraiture of Apollo and Minerva.
illustrious heroes, such as those executed by Taddeo da
Bartolo in the antechapel of Siena's Palazzo Pubblico (1414) and by Andrea Castagno for the
Villa Carducci (1450). Cheles notes that two leaders depicted in these cycles, Bartolo's Scipio
Africanus and Castagno's Queen Tomyris, hold a spear (the weapon of Minerva) with its point
turned to the ground, a motif found at Urbino in the intarsiated door leading from the Sala dei
Angeli to the Sala del Trono, where Minerva is paired with Apollo. Representative of
magnanimity and peaceful intent, this gesture is also found in numerous antique Roman
coins featuring "Mars, the pacifier," where the god of war holds his spear turned downward
while fixing his gaze on an olive branch in his other hand.60 Resemblance to the image of
Peace in Lorenzetti's fresco does not seem chance; it is consistent with the mantra that
balance between peace and war, with emphasis placed on peace, affords prosperity.
Comparable images are found in Montefeltro's personal iconography. A medal cast in 1468 in 36
honor of Federico by Clemente da Urbino includes the astrological signs of Mars, Venus, and
Jupiter, encircled by the inscription: "Fierce Mars and the Cytherean Venus, in conjunction
with the most high god of Thunder, equally contribute to your power and influence your
destiny."61 In the pantheon of the Greek and Roman gods, Harmony/Concordia was the
offspring of the god of war and the goddess of love: as daughter of Aphrodite/Venus,
Concordia was goddess of marital and civic harmony; as daughter of Ares/Mars, she
represented harmonious action in war. Later, in Ripa's Iconologia (1603) the emblem of
Concordia includes a plate and crown with bursting pomegranates, an image that is front and
center in the Urbino studiolo's east wall.
Federico's own intarsiated portrait reflects the influence of this imagery (see fig. 6.1). Like 37
Scipio, Tomyris, and Minerva, Federico holds a spear with its point turned downward. Unlike
the others, however, the duke is depicted not in battle regalia but rather in humanist robes.
This manner of dress literally embodies the Ciceronian phrase "Let arms to the toga yield"
that Piccolomini/Pius II had included in his treatise on an ideal education, composed for the
king of Hungary in 1450.62

During his own education, Federico dreamed of emulating the deeds of Scipio, the famed 38
general whose defeat of Hannibal and Carthage ensured regional supremacy for the Republic
of Rome. Montefeltro's master, Vittorino da Feltre, advised him otherwise. "I do not wish you
to become Scipio, but Alexander: like you, he was the son of a prince, and a prince himself."63
Vittorino predicted, in a letter sent to Guidantonio da Montefeltro, that Federico would be not
only a military leader (dux) but moreover a philosopher, embodying the ideals described by
Plato in the Republic.64 With arms at rest and instruments of scholarship and "right" leisure
as if in mid-use, the studiolo conveys the essence of philosophic rule: the armament of one's
body must be matched by a mind well armed with reason.65
6.3 The Gallery of the Illustrious (Uomini Illustri)
Fig. 6.34. Illustrious men, north Fig. 6.35. Illustrious men, east wall,
wall, Urbino studiolo. Urbino studiolo.
North Wall Encomia East Wall Encomia
Fig. 6.36. Illustrious men, south Fig. 6.37. Illustrious men, west
wall, Urbino studiolo. wall, Urbino studiolo.
South Wall Encomia West Wall Encomia
The portraits of the 28 uomini illustri greatly illuminate the scope and demeanor of 39
scholarship pursued by Federico and his court.66 Each theologian, philosopher, poet, lawyer,
historian, and doctor represented an exemplary position concerning the nature and uses of
wisdomancient and modern, sacred and profane, Aristotelian and Neoplatonist. The precise
mixture of illustrious heroes reflects Federico's interpretation of the well-established tradition
of surrounding oneself with worthy examples for imitation (and emulation) in one's affairs.67
Castiglione notes, "Every man must understand himself and his own powers, and govern
himself accordingly, and consider what things he should imitate, and what things he ought
not."68 To this end, Machiavelli offers a (modest) metaphor of archery:
Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their
actions by imitation. Not being always able to follow others exactly, nor attain to
the excellence of those he imitates, a prudent man should always follow in the
path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he
does not attain to the greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it. He will
do as prudent archers, who when the place they wish to hit is too far off, knowing
how far their bow will carry, aim at a spot much higher than the one they wish to
hit, not in order to reach this height with their arrow, but by help of this high
aim to hit the spot they wish to.69

Though some debate continues about the arrangement of these portraits, Pasquale Rotondi's 40
proposal remains the most satisfactory.70 According to Cheles, the top tier of the paintings
manifests an encyclopedic program, embodying "almost a complete spectrum of the leading
intellectual fields of the time,"71 while the bottom register is composed primarily of
theologians and the Church Fathers.72 En masse, the group embodies various paths to
wisdom that would furnish the duke with intellectual and moral equipment for governance.
Ensembles within the group provide insight into contemporary philosophical debates.
The pairing of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, for example, is emblematic of ongoing 41
friction between the Franciscan and Dominican Orders.73 Ripples from this dissent are
evident in Vespasiano's biography, in which Federico is said to rate "St. Thomas as clearer
than Scotus though less subtle."74 The portrait of Aquinas is placed in a symbolically choice
location, directly above the image of the ideal city at the east wall, but we find Scotus's name
and not Aquinas'sin the company of Plato, Seneca, and Tulio (Cicero) in the intarsia. In the
dialectics of the day, this arrangement was equivalent to a "balanced scorecard," in which
word and image were subjects of delicate diplomacy.75 With this example we detect the well-
measured influence of Cardinal Bessarion, who in his In calumniatorem Platonis refers to
both Aquinas and Scotus in his reconciliation of Plato with Aristotle, whose portraits are also
fittingly next to each other.76 Similarly, the Franciscan pope Sixtus IV, who writes that Scotus
and Aquinas differed in words but were of one mind, is portrayed with the Dominican
Albertus Magnus.77
Other notable pairings include Vittorino da Feltre, Federico's "very holy teacher," whose 42
mathematical inclinations placed him at the side of the ancient geometer Euclid, shown with a
compass, an object found in both studioli. Cicero and Seneca, representing eloquence and
ethical political action, are paired in name among books contained in the north wall as well as
by their portraits at the east wall.78 Virgil and Homer, whose names are also twinned in the
intarsia, are similarly paired. Their poetic works provided such early humanists as Dante and
Petrarch, represented in the lower register of the west wall, with a defensible springboard for
their writings. Ptolemy, the paternal figure of astronomy, is coupled with Boethius, whose De
institutione musica was included in Vittorino's curriculum at the Ca' Zoiosa for the study of
musical theory.
The association of good laws with the health of the city and its citizens may be detected in the 43
pairing of Solon, whom Aristotle credits with establishing a well-tempered constitution for the
city-state of Athens,79 and Bartolus, a lawyer renowned for his fair judgment. Meanwhile, the
presence of Pietro d'Abano80 and Hippocrates reflects a special interest at Urbino in recondite
principles of astrobiological medicine and its capacity to temper the constitutions of
individuals. These arrangements also refer to a broader debate concerning the preeminence of
medicine or law and the nature of their respective practices. Collucio Salutati wrote that law
was handed down by God at Sinai and as such embraces moral philosophy, whereas medicine,
being empirical and experimental, belonged to the mechanical arts rather than the sciences.

Poggio Bracciolini and Leonardo Bruni countered that medicine was derived from the
universals in Natural Philosophy and that the practice of lawyers, being derived from the
situational contingencies of Roman law, was akin to such mechanical arts as cooking, weaving,
and carpentry.81
Physical gestures in several portraits may be traced to Quintilian's Institutio oratoria, "a work 44
which had considerable influence on Renaissance educationalists, including Vittorino." In
particular, Cheles cites the "OK" sign made by Petrarch: "If the first finger touches the middle
of the right-hand edge of the thumb-nail with its extremity, the other fingers being relaxed, we
shall have a graceful gesture well suited to express approval or to accompany statements of
facts, and to mark the distinction between our different points."82
Noting the portraits of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Albertus Magnus, and Dante, Cheles again cites 45
Quintilian's treatise: "The following short gestures are also employed: the hand may be
slightly hollowed as it is when persons are making a vow, and then moved slightly to and fro,
the shoulders swaying gently in unison: this adapted to passages where we speak with
restraint and almost with timidity."83
Encoded within the paintings, then, are physical gestures deemed exemplary for rhetorical 46
persuasion.84 This matter also concerned Alberti, who in De pictura consults Cicero in his
discussion of gestures befitting a painting's thematic and physical arrangement: "Nature
provides . . . that we mourn with the mourners, laugh with those who laugh, and grieve with
the grief-stricken. These feelings are known from movements of the body."85
6.4 On the Physicality of Thought: Solitude, Solicitude, and

Cogitatio
Demonstrating a personal regimen later recommended by Machiavelli, Federico remained 47

physically and intellectually active during times of peace by conducting military exercises
every dawn and dedicating his afternoon hours to readings and disputation.86 "After rising
from [the] table [at midday] and giving audience to all who desired," Federico would repair to
his studiolo, at times accompanied by a reader who would read selections from the duke's
favorite authors, including Livy and Augustine.87 According to Vespasiano, Montefeltro
continued his education to the end of his life by studying with the various scholars invited to
the court, including Maestro Lazzaro, with whom he disputed on the "difficult passages" of
Aristotle's Ethics and Politics.88 He proceeded to Natural History, Physics, and the
theological works of Aquinas and Scotus. Federico's keen interest in logic and disputation
would be commemorated in the Gubbio studiolo by his portrait with the goddess of Dialectic.
Just before his death, Vespasiano reports, the duke turned his attention to readings of
mathematical treatises with the "great philosopher and astrologer" Paul of Middleburg.89

Federico's withdrawal to the studiolo with his reader reflected a traditional mode of learning 48
and repose by which the duke could "feed upon that food" that was found in the writings of his
illustrious heroes and "converse" with them about "the reasons for their deeds." Mary
Carruthers has noted that medieval reading was conceived not as a solipsistic activity but
more like a "hermeneutical dialogue" between two memories, as a process "whereby one
memory engages another in a continuing dialogue that approaches Plato's ideal (expressed in
Phaedrus) of two living minds engaged in learning."90 This manner of reading trained the
mind in the habit of familiarizing itself with the "foods" of its preference, digesting and
incorporating the wisdom of another's text into oneself. As Gregory the Great states: "We
ought to transform what we read into our very selves, so that when our mind is stirred by
what it hears, our life may concur by practicing what has been heard."91 Reading and feeding
were complementary activities. Federico's support of the monastic tradition of reading lessons
from scripture and history during meals reflects the continuation of the ancient practice of
ruminative familiarization at Urbino.92
Likewise, the slips of paper (notae) found in each 49

Fig. 6.38. Note in northwest wall of
Gubbio studiolo. studiolo, peeking out of books or "pinned" to the intarsia,
represent another medieval technique of impressing
significant passages into the memory. Petrarch, whose writings offered subsequent humanists
a bridge to medieval and ancient traditions, had composed a private dialogue with Augustine
in which the saint encourages him to transcribe wholesome maxims from his readings onto
notae and into the margins of his manuscripts. This would provide, he says, "hooks" in the
memory to assist with the poet's meditation, "so that whenever or where some urgent case of
illness arises, you have the remedy as though written in your mind."93 Such moral elixirs as
the phrase "virtutibus itur ad astra," boldly inscribed on a nota and "nailed" to a shelf at
Urbino, would have been an especially useful mnemonic for the various modes of solitude
afforded by the studiolo.
Of course, Federico required a different sort of privacy from that prescribed by Petrarch. 50
Although a poet such as Pietro Bembo, a future member of Guidobaldo's court,94
recommended extended periods in a countryside villa distant from worldly cares, the privacy
for a prince and military leader was somewhat more limited.95 For Federico in particular,
solitude did not necessarily signify tranquillity but often meant a state of acute edge-of-the-
seat concentration that was emotional and whole-body, not only mental.
To better appreciate this active mode of rumination, we refer to Aquinas, who in his digest of 51
Cicero's memory rules had modified the word solitudo to sollicitudo. Carruthers describes this
term as an "attitude of mind which vexes or 'worries' [as a dog worries a bone] the emotions
and the sensations in order to engage in the activity of making, storing, recalling memory
images, to the exclusion of outside strepitus [confusion, noise] and bustle even when it is
going on immediately around one."96

A small room teeming with images might seem to our eye a place too busy, too stimulating, for 52
placid thought. However, in a long-standing tradition, sensory agitation was believed to
activate the mind and, in particular, the memory, enabling one to break from the strepitus97
of the external world to focus inward on the matters at hand. Augustine describes the active
nature of thought through the term cogitatio: "Once they [thoughts] have been dispersed, I
have to collect them again, and this is the derivation of the word cogitare, which means to
think or to collect one's thoughts. For in Latin the word cogo, meaning I assemble or I collect,
is related to cogito, which means I think, in the same way as ago is related to agito."98
Agito, "to move, to rouse," describes the fundamental restlessness of cogitatio, which passes 53
"with a wandering movement"99 among things sensed and stored as sense-images (imagines)
in the memory. Through cogitatio, "a combinative or compositional activity of the mind,"100
the mind is brought under its own gaze to select, arrange and recombine its contents
according to circumstance.101 The ability to concentrate, to shift focus adroitly from one's
immediate surroundings, was essential for Federico to form prompt and sound judgments,
whether in the course of battle or in civil affairs. Rather than a retreat from everyday
concerns, solitude-as-solicitude trained one's habits of concentration in proximity to worldly
responsibilities, as a calm in the eye of a storm.102 Leonardo Giustiniani describes the
challenging nature of this practice: "In all one's life there is no task so difficult or more worthy
of a great man than either not to be moved, or if one's mind is already disturbed, to be able to
collect it easily, though it has been scattered far and wide, and place it in a safe and tranquil
haven."103 The sensuous intensity of the studioli would have offered the Montefeltro dukes
ideal settings for the mind's workings, as places wherein and whereby to shut out strepitus
and "collect" themselves to address their duties of governance.
Throughout the day, as Vespasiano emphasizes, Montefeltro made himself readily accessible 54
to provide counsel for citizens and visiting dignitaries,104 whether between courses at a meal,
al fresco in one of the palace courtyards, or in the Sala d'Udienza. If the issue could not be
promptly resolved, Federico would withdraw with his reader to the studiolo, where,
surrounded by the countenances of the uomini illustri and with recourse to their writings,
Federico would give the matter due consideration. His judgments, which were usually
"dispatched on the same day," were said not to have been "bettered if they had come before
Bartolo of Sassoferato," the famed lawyer included among the uomini illustri.105

6.5 The Roman Cubiculum
Understandably, one might be inclined to distinguish contemplative from governmental 55

activities in the studiolo.106 However, contemplative activities were not viewed separately
from Federico's responsibilities of governance. The character and composition of the Urbino
studiolo, including its proximity to the Sala d'Udienza, would have had as much to do with its
function as a judicial chamber as with a propagandistic display of magnificentia.
In the Art of Building, Alberti had recommended an arrangement of several interconnected 56

rooms to filter between the public and private zones of a palace. "Before the innermost rooms
should be an atrium or hall, where clients can await the chance to discuss business with their
patrons, and where the prince may sit on the tribunal and give judgment."107 Alberti's
humanist interests in ancient Roman texts and architectural ruins directly influenced his
writings on these matters. In his discussion of the appropriate arrangement of audience
chambers in a princely dwelling, Alberti notes: "I find in Seneca that Graccus, followed by
Livius Drusus, was the first not to grant everyone an audience at once, but to divide up the
people, and receive some in private, some in company with others, and some en masse, thus
distinguishing close friends from secondary acquaintances. If you are wealthy enough, you
may prefer to have a number of different doors; these will enable you to dismiss your visitors
in a different part from where you had earlier received them, and to exclude any whom you do
not wish to receive, without causing offense."108
Fig. 6.39. Axonometric detail of the Fig. 6.40. The salon d'udienza
Urbino ducal palace. (audience chamber).
Urbino Studiolo Loop
We find this arrangement at the Urbino studiolo (chamber #1), which is connected to three 57
separate roomsthe Sala d'Udienza (#5), the duke's dressing room (#3), and the exterior
loggia (#2). In turn, separate doors connect the loggia with the more public salon and more
private bedchambers. The duke would have been able to receive certain esteemed visitors in
the studiolowhile others waited in the salonand proceed with them to the external loggia
to conclude or continue their discussion while enjoying the magnificent view of the
surrounding countryside. Afterward, the guest could depart through the door to the salon
rather than having to return by way of the studiolo. By then, another guest could have been
admitted to the studiolo, while others waited elsewhere, perhaps in the salon. The
architectural arrangement of these rooms would have set the stage for the duke, Ottaviano,
and court officials to have enacted the diplomatic choreography recommended by Seneca and
Alberti.

In addition to classical authors, Alberti and Federico witnessed examples of the interplay of 58
architecture and rhetoric through ongoing archaeological excavations in the Roman forum.
Texts and ruins revealed that certain areas of the Roman dwelling were designated for
"entering into thought." The spatial comportment and ornament of these locations articulated
an ambience conducive for thought by providing the sensuous conduits for guiding one's
mindfulness to the open construction site of one's memory.
In book 2 of De oratore, an inquiry into the ideal philosophical orator, Cicero offers a few 59
examples of these domestic settings.109 The character Antonius recounts how Simonides of
Ceos had discovered the principles of architectural mnemonics from the banquet table by
placing images (imagines) in an orderly set of architectural locations (loci) visualized in his
memory.110 Elsewhere in the dialogue, Antonius and Crassus take a siesta to contemplate
their responses to matters that others had placed before them. Antonius chooses to compose
his thoughts while walking in the portico.111 Crassus, in contrast, retires to an exedra, where
he devotes his midday respite to "the closest and most careful meditation."112
Aside from the portico and exedra, there is another chamber in the Roman house, the 60
cubiculum, to which Crassus (and Cicero, who had purchased Crassus's house) could have
repaired to meditatively compose himself and his judgments. Obscure in its origins and
function, this chamber remains to this day somewhat misunderstood. The Oxford English
Dictionary renders cubiculum (as well as its derivative cubicle) as "bedroom," a logical
assessment given its Latin root, cubare, to recline. Otherwise, Vitruvius mentions the
cubiculum once, noting that "private rooms [cubicula] and libraries should look to the east, for
their purpose demands the morning light."113 Pliny the Younger, as we have seen, offers a
more informative comment in his Epistolae, evoking a studious ambience: "My cubiculum has
a press let into the wall which does duty as a library, and holds books not merely to be read,
but read over and over again."114
A well-preserved cubiculum, extracted from the villa of 61

Fig. 6.41. The cubiculum from the
villa of P. Fannius Synistor, 50-40 Fannius Synestor at Boscoreale, may be visited at the
BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In accord with
traditional scholarship,115 the label describes the
cubiculum as a bedroom; to this end, a small couch was previously placed in the room (it has
been excluded following a recent restoration). Although this piece of furniture was not original
to the chamber, its inclusion was not necessarily erroneous. The error lies in the assumption
that the couch would have been used for sleeping and not for other activities. As Philo, envoy
to the emperor Caligula, observed: "The couches upon which the Romans recline at their
repasts shine with gold and pearls."116 Repasts and siestas were not used merely as periods of
eating and sleeping, as their English translations suggest. Instead, as may be gathered from
Cicero, this period of the day and the setting of the cubiculum would have been used for
"business, for conversation with particular friends, for reading and contemplation."117
Carruthers elaborates:

[Synestor's cubiculum is] just large enough for a single couch. The word Cicero
uses, lectulus, meant not just a bed for sleeping, but one for conversation and
studyperhaps because of its partial homophony with legere, lectus, "gather by
picking" (like flowers) and "read." Its walls are all painted in panels,
intercolumnia, with fantastic, theatrical architecture. . . . The murals make a
"theater" of locations that, apparently, was assumed to be conducive to
inventional meditationnot because it provided subject-matter, but because the
familiarity, the route- (and rote)-like quality, of such a patterned series in one's
most tranquil space could help provide an order or "way" for compositional
cogitation.118
In addition to the peripatetic mode of composition 62

Fig. 6.42. Mnemonic ornament
preferred by Antonius, Romans meditated in a reclined from the cubiculum from the villa
positionat times in a more public exedra, at others in of P. Fannius Synistor, 50-40 BCE.
the more private cubiculum.119 The linguistic twining of
bed and reading, via Cicero's lectulus, continued into the Renaissance: Castiglione includes
the interpolation as an exemplary pun in his discussion of an ideal courtier's sense of
humor.120 However, as evident in such quattrocento portraiture as Antonello da Messina's
portrait of St. Jerome, the posture for thought had shifted from a reclined to a seated position;
Cicero's "daybed" had been replaced as the furniture-for-musing by the reading lectern.
Fig. 6.43. Drawing of St. Jerome in Fig. 6.44. Operable intarsia panels
His Study. folded open, Urbino studiolo.
Fig. 6.45. Reconstruction of lectern

arrangement.
In each of the Montefeltro studioli, lecterns figure prominently. At Urbino, a large lectern is 63
featured in the miniature studiolo: adjacent panels fold out to form what Rotondi has
proposed as a bench and reading stand. It is doubtful, however, that this arrangement
accounts for the "tavola" that Baldi places toward the middle of the chamber.121 On closer
scrutiny, the physical components of Rotondi's proposal do not appear sturdy enough to
support this argument. More likely, this design gesture gave the duke another visual delight to
demonstrate to visitors, particularly with regard to its proximity to the studiolo-within-a-
studiolo. Because the studiolo was used for reading and letter-writing, the tavola was probably
a freestanding intarsiated lectern, as was then popular.122 Perhaps it was similar to the
mobile lectern depicted at Gubbio.
From all accounts, it is apparent that Federico used the Urbino studiolo in a manner akin to 64
the Romans' use of the cubiculum. In the Sala d'Udienza, Federico received visitors seeking
counsel. After hearing their news or requests, Federico would retire to the studiolo, where the

presence of a well-learned reader, Maestro Lazzaro, would have offered a worthy adviser to
dispute the finer points of pertinent texts, political as well as theoretical, assisting the duke to
arrive at a decision.
To draw an even more concrete connection between the studiolo and cubiculum, we might 65
return, in full, to the phrase from Pliny's Epistolae mentioned earlier: "Parieti eius cubiculi
mei in bibliothecae speciem armarium insertum est quod non legendos libros sed letitandos
capit."123 In his analysis, Cheles crops cubiculi mei from his translation of the phrase,
perhaps because of its traditional misinterpretation as "bedroom."124 When we restore to the
cubiculum its studious significance, we realize that Cheles was more correct in his comparison
than he may have realized: the physical description of Pliny's cubiculum concurs precisely
with the physical arrangement of the Urbino studiolo.
During World War II, when the studiolo contents were dismantled and temporarily removed 66
to the castle at San Leo, a blind cavitynot a concealed structural pilaster or vertical conduit
was discovered behind the image of the ideal city.125 It is plausible, then, that the book press
had been built precisely to fulfill Pliny's specifications, providing storage for equipment
appropriate to a study126 and books "to be read and read again"in this case, authoritative
texts and documents to be readily consulted, as the duke (and his interlocutor) desired.
6.6 FEDE+RICO and the Faithlessness of Princes
Among the affairs Federico conducted in the studiolo at Urbino, not all were ruminative, 67
convivial, or particularly civil. Although Dora Thornton states that the Urbino studiolo would
"surely" not have been used for "the most secret negotiations of Federico's government, which
would properly have taken place in his bedchamber,"127 an episode recounted by Vespasiano
suggests otherwise: "While the Venetian messenger was at Urbino it chanced that one of the
Duke's chief officers was in his closet [studiolo], and after the Venetian had left, he turned to
the Duke and said, 'Eighty thousand ducats is a good price simply for staying at home';
whereupon the Duke replied wisely, 'To keep faith is still better, and is worth more than all
the gold in the world.'" 128
In 1482, Pope Sixtus IV had formed an alliance with Venice, whose expansionist interests had 68
turned toward Ferrara, home of Federico's long-standing allies, the d'Este. Sensing that
Federico would not agree to carry out this strategy, the Venetians sent an ambassador to bribe
Federico to "stay at home." Federico, fearing that the balance of power would shift too far in
favor of the Venetians, refused the offer and led the forces of Florence, Milan, and the king of
Naples to defend Ferrara.129

The outcome of quattrocento Italian politics and warfare was often determined by what would 69
today be considered behind-the-scenes negotiations. In these matters of political chess, the
studiolo imagery would have offered Montefeltro an effective means to narrate a firm but
lighthearted diplomacy. For example, following the Venetian messenger's proposition,
Federico could have conveyed his guest's attention to the personification of Faith in the south
wall (standpoint #1 in Fig. 6.38), and then to an adjacent cabinet in which the letters F E D E
are found on four facets of an octagonal inkwell. Here, in a demonstration of rhetorical chreia
(an edifying anecdote), the duke could pause to reflect on the virtue of religious devotion and
its earthly counterpart, loyalty. If the messenger were to ask what would become of the
"riches" represented by the second half of the duke's name (since the remaining four facets of
the inkwell are "obscured" from view), Montefeltro could redirect his narrative to the fronts of
two box-drawers located directly behind them, in the northwest corner of the studiolo
(standpoint #2). There they would find a drawer with "RI" in its rightful slot, while a drawer
displaying "CO" had been "removed" and "placed" on the bench below.
Fig. 6.46. Worm's eye view of two Fig. 6.47. Images of Faith,
station points for appreciating personified and symbolized in
Federico's faithfulness. south wall, Urbino studiolo.
Fig. 6.48. Inkwell with letters Fig. 6.49. Box-drawers in northwest

FEDE and rosary above, in south corner of Urbino studiolo.
wall, Urbino studiolo.
Fig. 6.50. Box-drawers in

northwest corner of Urbino
studiolo.
Federico might then remind the messenger of a previous occasion, in 1467, when his contract 70
with the king of Naples had terminated and Venice attempted to hire away his services. When
the Venetians presented a letter of their offer, Federico shrewdly passed it along (unopened)
to the commissaries of the Italic League, as a gesture of loyalty to the king, his most loyal
patron.130 Federico might then have diplomatically concluded (as his biographer Vespasiano
would later write) that "all those to whom he gave his word bear witness that he never broke
it . . . whether under obligation or free."131
An observant messenger would have noticed that the letters on the drawers for "FE" and "DE" 71
were obscured, a subtlety that heightens the spatial experience (and underscores the intent) of
this trope on the duke's name, which means literally "rich with faith."132 A keenly observant
messenger would have noticed that the object covering the "DE"an erminewas also found

beneath two of the three theological virtues. And even if the messenger were not curious about
these subtleties, the duke would likely have pointed them out, jesting that the intarsists had
absentmindedly left the bench below the portrait of Faith "upturned," hiding the third ermine.
Fig. 6.51. Image of ermine and Fig. 6.52. Leonardo da Vinci's

phrase "non mai," Gubbio studiolo. portrait of Cecilia Gallerani.
Federico would not have needed to explain the significance of this animal, a popular image of 72
purity and loyalty. The accompanying phrase "non mai" (never) refers to the tradition that an
ermine would rather die than soil its pure white coat. The messenger would also have noted
that the king of Naples had installed Duke Federico as a member of the Order of the Ermine in
August 1474: the collar of the order is found dangling from the "DE" box-drawer at Urbino,
and (sans ermine) encircling the initials FE DuX in four ceiling coffers at Urbino. The collar is
also found at the Gubbio studiolo above the entryway and in Berreguete's portrait of Federico
and Guidobaldo. It is also possible, as Raggio suggests, that the ermine and the phrase "non
mai" carried more personal associations for Federico, as a declaration of innocence in the
assassination of his younger brother, Duke Oddantonio da Montefeltro, in 1444.133
Apart from its theological significance, faith-as-loyalty appears to have been a scarce 73
commodity in the late quattrocento. According to Machiavelli, "One could furnish an infinite
number of modern examples, and show how many times peace has been broken, and how
many promises rendered worthless, by the faithlessness of princes."134 Federico was well
schooled in these matters. During the Battle of Rimini (1469), in which Federico assisted in
the city's defense, forces from Milan and Florence had been promised but did not "keep faith."
With his skill in drawing up a clever plan of battle and binding his men to enforce it, Federico
won the battle against superior numbers "more by science than by force."135
Loyalty was evidently a challenge for soldiers as well as princes. A leader, if not directly 74
experienced in these matters, could not evoke the confidence to bind even his own men to
enact his strategies.136 In this light, then, "keeping faith" reflected a prince's capacity to
harness and conduct the will of others. For his skill in these matters, Federico gained
particular renown. In the Apologus to his translation of Plato's De regno, dedicated to
Montefeltro on 6 January 1482, Marsilio Ficino plays on the duke's name, describing in a
witticism that Federico was known as "a fide regia fideregum" and "ab orbis imperio
Orbinatem ducem" by superior intelligences and as "Federicus Urbinas dux" by men.137
It is at times difficult to regard the honorific titles and humanist panegyrics bestowed on a 75
figure such as Federico da Montefeltro without reservation. This is particularly true when
Machiavelli, who writes from a perspective following numerous tides of foreign invasion, lays
direct blame for the demise of the Italian nation on the condottiere, whose benign code of
military execution he believes had reduced Italy to "slavery and degradation": "They used
every means to spare themselves and the soldiers any hardship or fear by not killing each

other in their encounters, but taking prisoners without expectation of ransom. They made no
attacks on fortifications by night; and those in the fortifications did not attack the tents at
night, they made no stockades or ditches around their camps, and did not take the field in
winter. All these things were permitted by their military code, and adopted, as we have said, to
avoid trouble and danger."138 When we compare Machiavelli's criticisms with specific
accounts of Montefeltro's activities, we may discern why Federico had gained the esteem of
his contemporaries. On several occasions, Vespasiano underscores how the duke kept faith in
the face of daunting opposition and recounts how he led nighttime raids on enemy
fortifications.139 Until recently, Montefeltro's reputation, bolstered by biographers and
historians, had exculpated him on points for which condottieri were generally held in
contempt.
It is tempting yet misleading to interpret the actions of Federico and his contemporaries 76
according to normative categories of good and bad, or to evaluate their passion for honorifics
and panegyrics as either "historically accurate" or "inflated." By entering the thicket of images
in the studioli to ponder their meanings and workings, we are thrust into the messy webs of
their surrounding culture. Machiavelli's suggestion, for example, that a prince "not deviate
from what is good, if possible, but be able to do evil if constrained," must be appreciated in
context.140 Although political and military leaders were exhorted to virtues of constancy and
temperance, the late quattrocento (and early cinquecento) was not a juste milieu, as
Machiavelli illustrates:
Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or
known to exist in reality; for how we live is far removed from how we ought to
live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather
learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation. A man who wishes to
make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief
among so many who are not good. Therefore it is necessary for a prince, who
wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this
knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.141
Although Machiavelli agrees with the common wisdom that a prince should ideally manifest
all of the best qualities and virtues (including his own list of five essential characteristics), he
asserts that this is not realistic in practice.142 Human conditions preclude the possibility of
possessing or observing all of these qualities, so the prince should be "prudent enough to
avoid the scandal of those vices [that] would lose him the state. . . . And yet he must not mind
incurring the scandal of those vices, without which it would be difficult to save the state, for if
one considers well, it will be found that some things which seem virtues would, if followed,
lead to one's ruin, and some others which appear vices result in one's greater security and
well-being."143 In other words, a prince's "goodness" might harm his state under certain
circumstances, where an act of vice might be necessary to preserve it. "To learn how not to be
good, and to use this knowledge and not use it," is a subtle twist of Cicero's definition of

prudence as "the knowledge of what is good, what is bad and what is neither good nor
bad."144 Machiavelli's recommendation offers a shrewd point of entry into the realm of ethics,
the subject Federico disputed exhaustively with his readers.145
To preserve the state, asserts Machiavelli, a prince must know how to fight by two methods: 77
the laws of men and the force of a beast. As a beast, the prince "must imitate the fox and the
lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from
wolves."146 Of these two modes, Machiavelli notes, "Those that have been best able to imitate
the fox have succeeded best."147 Although martial images throughout the studiolo and palace
lionize Montefeltro's Fortitude, it is clear from Vespasiano's biography that Federico inclined
naturally to the shrewd action and policy of the fox.
After Federico assumed command of Urbino in 1444, Sigismondo Malatesta intensified the 78
ancient feud with the Montefeltro by sending letters to Francesco Sforza of Milan and
Cardinal Ludovico Scarampo, a papal legate, in which he attacked Federico's character while
implicating him in the assassination of Oddantonio. Further, Sigismondo challenged
Federico's legitimacy, reasoning that the marriages of two of Count Guidantonio da
Montefeltro's sisters to members of the Malatesta family should have entitled him, and not
Federico, to rule Urbino.
Fortunately for Federico, a secretary of the cardinal intercepted and forwarded the letter to 79
Urbino, and on 8 January 1445, Federico's response was delivered to both the cardinal and
Sigismondo. In this letter, "a masterpiece of libellous eloquence,"148 Federico lists the various
atrocities that Sigismondo had allegedly committed, condemning him to Dante's Inferno. In
addition to annulling Malatesta's charges, this letter was later used by Pope Pius II as
"evidence" in a trial against Malatesta. Pius II appointed Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa to conduct
the proceedings, which concluded with Sigismondo's excommunication and the burning of his
straw effigy on the Campidoglio, in the Campo dei Fiori, and on the steps of St. Peter's
Cathedral.
A key to apparent contradictions in Federico's world is reflected in the multifaceted character 80

of virt. Although often portrayed as the hallmark of inflated humanist rhetoric,149 the
exercise of virt was believed to cultivate a well-tempered character, enabling prince, courtier,
and craftsman to maintain a sapient balance regardless of circumstance. In mid-quattrocento
Italy, balance was critical to negotiate such intricate intellectual and political matters as the
continued strife between church and empire and the reintegration of Byzantine scholarship
and culture with the ideologies of the Roman Church following the fall of Constantinople in
1453.150
Beneath the scholarly hubris and "moralistic patina" that have accumulated around this 81
term,151 exhortations to virt addressed the delicate workings of the human psyche and, by
extension, the fragile nature of human relationships.152 As with the liberal arts, categorical
distinctions of the virtues153 were fluid and ever-shifting, affording easier digestion of notions

that are otherwise densely intertwined. The roll call of virtues in the works of Castiglione,
Landino, and Machiavelli were not perceived, in their own time, as banal panegyrics;154
rather, they approximated an ideal concert (or concord) of actions and responses, offering
practical guidelines that could be tailored to contemporary social and political mechanics.155
The significance of virt in the Montefeltro studioli is 82

Fig. 6.53. Detail of "virtutibus itur
ad astra," north wall, Urbino emphatic. Cheles has discerned a valuable link between
studiolo. the phrase "virtutibus itur ad astra," represented at
Urbino, and the opened manuscript of Virgil's Aeneid,
displayed on the lectern in the Gubbio studiolo.156 The page shown at Gubbio contains the
following passage: "Each has his day appointed; short and irretrievable is the span of life to
all: but to lengthen fame by deedsthat is valour's task."157 Elsewhere in the Aeneid we find
the phrase "macte nova virtute, puer: sic itur ad astra."158 Selecting the corresponding terms
in the Urbino studiolo, the phrase reads "with virtue/valour, so man scales the stars."
Although Virgilian virt was steeped in military connotations, an aspect fitting to Duke 83
Federico's livelihood, the measure of a prince was determined not only by his valor during war
and strife but more acutely by his conduct during times of peace. According to Castiglione, "It
is fitting in war, and always, to have all the virtues that make for rightlike justice, continence
[fortitude], temperance; but much more in time of peace and ease, because men placed in
prosperity and ease, when good fortune smiles upon them, often become unjust, intemperate,
and allow themselves to be corrupted by pleasures."159 For Federico and his contemporaries,
the notion of virt encompassed the military valor expressed in Virgil's Aeneid, the moral and
ethical overtones of pantheistic and Christian wisdom, and the skills demonstrated in the craft
of thought and material artifacts. Whether embodied as a virtuous deed, as the virtuous civic
setting wherein the deed took place, or as the registration of the deed and its setting by the
virtuoso work of an artist, virt effected empathy among human emotions, the divine, and the
sensible realm of materials. As an integration of the visible and invisible, virt accessed the
pantheon of communal memory.
The role of the architect was pivotal in these matters. As beneficiary of the well-rounded 84
education associated with the cultivation of virt, the architect was ethically responsible for
shaping the actions of men through the built environment. Alberti notes, "There is nothing,
aside from virtue, to which a man should devote more care, more effort and attention, than to
the acquisition of a good home to shelter himself and his family."160 The virt of dignified
houses enabled families and city-states alike to weather the unpredictable influences of
contemporary politics and chance.

6.7 The Influence of Politics on Patronage
In response to the fall of Constantinople, the Peace of Lodi in 1454 unified the five powers of 85
the Italic peninsulathe Papal States (including Urbino), Naples, Venice, Florence, and Milan
into the mutual defense alliance of the Italic League. From its inception, the alliance was
tenuous: concessions were made on all accounts in order for agreement to be reached among
its intricately intermarried and perpetually embattled members.161 Francesco Sforza,
previously a condottiere employed by the Visconti, was installed as duke of Milan to protect
the territory from possible dynastic claims made by the French king. This in turn offered
stability to the Venetians, who were threatened by Ottoman expansion162 and were concerned
about the prospects of a French invasion.
As a result of this alliance, friendships Federico had cultivated during his itinerant education 86
as a youthwith the Gonzaga, Sforza, d'Este, and Medicigave the young count a unique
opportunity. Admired for his loyalty and shrewd diplomacy, characteristics not commonly
associated with condottiere at the time,163 Federico was elected captain of the league.164 Paid
during times of war and peace alike, Federico played a pivotal role as arbitrator among the
league's members. Although the Italic League endured, officially, for almost 25 yearsfrom
the Peace of Lodi to the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478the powers never ceased to align and
realign themselves according to strategic suballiances.
The perpetual imbalance of these alliances and rivalries directly influenced artistic and 87
intellectual patronage and commerce. In the same year that Alberti visited Urbino (1464) and
had his horoscope cast by Jacob of Speier, Federico's astrologer, the newly elected Pope Paul
II, disbanded the College of Abbreviators. Recently established by Federico's staunch
supporter, the humanist Pope Pius II, the college had provided a lively intellectual center (and
a source of gainful employment) for Alberti and such like-minded scholars as Bartolomeo
Platina, who had instructed Marsilio Ficino in Greek and would later become the first official
librarian of the Vatican Library. Platina, a trained soldier who, like Federico, had studied at the
Ca' Zoiosa and served under the famed General Niccol Piccinino, was chosen by his
colleagues to protest the pope's decision. Known for his hot temper as much as his eloquence,
Platina was subsequently imprisoned and narrowly escaped execution.165
The extreme nature of these events reflects the volatile interdependence of politics and 88
scholarship. At the time, Paul II (the Venetian Pietro Barbo) had just won a bitterly contested
election over Cardinal Bessarion, a scholar who had emigrated from Byzantium by way of
Greece and subsequently became deeply involved in the politics of Venice and of the Holy See.
As noted in the encomium on his portrait in the Urbino studiolo, Bessarion had supported the
unification of the Greek and Roman Churches as early as 1438. Through his influential
treatise In calumniatorem Platonis (145869),166 Bessarion sought to resolve the heated
philosophical dialectics problematizing this union by reconciling the teachings of Plato and
Aristotle. In this treatise, as Paul Kristeller notes: "Bessarion not only defends Plato's life and

doctrine against the attacks of [scholars such as] Trapezuntius, but he also describes Plato's
contributions to the various fields of learning and then presents Plato's metaphysical
doctrines with an emphasis both on their intrinsic merits and on their agreement with
Christian theology. Bessarion treats Aristotle with great respect and tends to harmonize him
with Plato rather than to criticize him. He often cites the Latin theologians, especially
Augustine, Aquinas, and Duns Scotus."167
At the Congress of Mantua in 1459, Pius II charged 89

Fig. 6.54. Cardinal Bessarion,
among the illustrious men in the Bessarion and Nicholas of Cusa with convincing Venice
south wall of the Urbino studiolo. to participate in a new crusade to recapture
Extended Caption 24
Constantinople.168 As of 1463, Bessarion had been
placed in charge of the expanding settlement of Greek
migrs in Venice. Although he had converted to Latin Catholicism in 1438, these positions of
authority, held by a Byzantine with a stated agenda to preserve his own vanishing culture,
likely posed a threat to members of the Venetian aristocracy and the Holy See. Nonetheless,
Bessarion's intellectual and political motivations ingratiated him with humanist leaders and
scholars, with whom he openly shared the rarities of his famous library and the benefits of his
influence. Bessarion had secured Platina's appointment to the College of Abbreviators, and his
secretary, the German mathematician Johannes Mller (Regiomontanus), proved deeply
influential in Rome and on the practice of astronomy at Urbino.169 Piero della Francesca,
another member of Bessarion's circle in Rome, later received Montefeltro's patronage.170
As Federico's "wisest, and best of friends," Bessarion was godfather to all three of the duke's 90
sons and exhorted them to study the classics.171 To this end he presented Antonio, whom he
baptized in 1450, with Homer's Iliad, in Greek.172 Following Bessarion's death in 1472,
Federico served as the executor of the cardinal's will, a task that included the transfer of a
major portion of Bessarion's library to Venice, as the foundation for what would become the
Library of St. Mark. For nearly two years, thirty chests of books containing rare works of
Euclid and Ptolemypreviously inaccessible to Italian scholarswere stored in the cloister of
Sta. Chiara, a few hundred meters from the ducal palace at Urbino. The presence of these
chests in Urbino from 1472 to 1474 coincides with the beginning of two projects central to
Federico's aspirations, the formation of the ducal library and the conception of the studiolo.
Almost twenty years after the incident of the abbreviators, Federico and Marsilio Ficino 91
encountered similar complications of fortune. In 1472, Federico had endeared himself to
Ficino's patron, Lorenzo de' Medici, through his rapid and decisive victory over Volterra.173 In
gratitude, Federico was richly rewarded with one of the prized possessions of Volterraa Bible
composed in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin174as well as with a ceremonial jousting helmet
designed by Antonio Pollaiuolo, the dedication of Cristofero Landino's Disputationes
camaldulensis, and residences in Florence and its countryside.

By the time that Ficino was prepared to dedicate a collection of his own works to the duke, 92
alliances had again shifted. On 26 April 1478, in a conspiracy often attributed to Cardinal
Girolamo Riario and members of the Pazzi family, Lorenzo was wounded and Giuliano
murdered in an attack on the two Medici brothers in the Florence cathedral during Mass.
Although absolved of involvement, Federico was bound by contract to Riario's uncle, Sixtus
IV, and was summarily counted among the enemies of the Medici.175
It now appears that for the past five hundred years Federico had outfoxed historians as well as 93
his contemporaries; a letter recently discovered in a private Urbino archive suggests that the
duke may have in fact orchestrated this fateful event. According to Marcello Simonetta, who
discovered and decrypted the letter, Federico personally insisted on eliminating the Medici
brothers, offering "550 soldiers and fifty knights and expressing gratitude for the pope's gift
to . . . Guidobaldo, a golden chain that represented legitimization of the Montefeltro dynasty
under papal jurisdiction."176
As a result of this incident, Ficino had to postpone his offering to Federico, though he would 94
not have long to wait. By 1482, Sixtus IV had formed a new alliance with Venice, which had
turned its own expansionist interests toward Ferrara, the seat of the d'Este. Fearing that the
balance of power would shift too far in favor of the Venetians, Federico withdrew his services
from the pope and joined Florence and Milan in defending Ferrara. It would be the duke's
final campaign. Thus it was in the spring of 1482, instead of 1477, that Ficino received Lorenzo
de' Medici's consent to dedicate his works to Federico, a condition that may also have
influenced completion of the intarsia for the Gubbio studiolo, executed in the Maiano
workshop in Florence.177
6.8 Temperance and the Golden Mean
The quattrocento mind was habituated to the probability that today's ally could well be 95
tomorrow's rival, to become again an ally the following day. Machiavelli observes, "Let no
state believe that it can always follow a safe policy, rather let it think that all are doubtful."178
In 1467, Florence, Milan, and Naples formed the Anti-Venetian League. Seven years later,
Venice was in league with Florence and Milan. In 1478, Florence was at war with Naples and
the Papal States. By 1480, the alliances had completed a full circle, when Florence signed a
treaty with Naples and joined with Milan against Venice and the Papal States.
With one's economic and intellectual latitude ineluctably drawn by these uncertain politics, 96
discretion was a maxim. Even a highly educated condottiere was not immune from scrutiny in
these matters. Although Sigismondo Malatesta was renowned and feared for his intelligence

and battle skills, his penchant for the extremesuch as his overzealous advocacy of the
Byzantine arch-Neoplatonist Gemisthus Pletho179alienated the Holy See and contributed to
his eventual excommunication.
In this changeable climate, it was wise to seek a "mean" 97

Fig. 6.55. Pletho's sarcophagus,
ensconced in the southwest wall of between transparency and opacity with others,
the Tempio Malatestiano. representing as much a deepened understanding of
oneself as a diplomatic approach to interpersonal
relations. As Aristotle describes in the Nichomachean Ethics: "By the mean which is relative
to ourselves I denote that which is neither too much nor too little, and this is not one and the
same for everybody. . . . [A]n expert in any field avoids excess and deficiency, and seeks and
chooses the meanthat is, not the objective mean but the mean relatively to ourselves."180
Evoking metaphors of calculable measure, the notion of the "mean" dovetailed with
Temperance, a cardinal virtue that provided practical advice for moderation and self-
regulation in one's character and everyday activities; in education, diet and exercise,
governance, and leisure.
Temperance is derived from the Latin temperare, to mix in due proportions. As reflected by 98
its personification in the Door of the Virtues at Urbino, this definition stems from the ancient
Greek symposium, or drinking party, at which the levity or gravity of an occasion was
determined by mixing the wine with prescribed amounts of water. An example of this practice
is found in the beginning of Plato's Symposium, a work deeply influential to the Urbino
court.181
Fig. 6.56. Papagalli and mechanical Fig. 6.57. Hourglass, Urbino

clock, Urbino studiolo. studiolo.

studiolo.
Etymologically akin to weather and time, qualities of perpetual change, Temperance is also 99
represented by mechanical clocks and the hourglass.182 In the Urbino studiolo, an elaborate
clock appears on the door leading to the duke's bedchambers, and an hourglass occupies a
cabinet shelf in the north wall, above the names of Virgil and Homer, alongside the
personification of Hope. A second hourglass is found beside the lectern in the miniature
studiolo, a particularly jocund play of temporal and spatial layering.
The concept of a proportional mean for contemplation and material fabrication preoccupied 100
the Franciscan polymath Fra Luca Pacioli, who joined the Urbino court during Guidobaldo's
reign. In a treatise devoted to the subject, Divina proportione (1497/1509), Pacioli
emphasized the importance of due proportion in various fieldsin medicine, mechanics, and

fortifications, in art (by perspective and the mixing of colors), and particularly in architecture,
as an extension of the lineaments of the human body. Although Pacioli was fascinated with
such processes of mathematical and geometrical embodiment as stereometry and
stereotomy,183 the friar's interest in the divine proportion (or "golden mean") did not center
on its instrumentalization.184 An instructor of theology, Pacioli was less concerned with
translating the divine into the worldly than with transporting human intellectby way of the
sensesto contemplate mysteries beyond human comprehension. Pacioli, like Ficino and
Cusa, regarded artistic works as powerful vehicles for divine contemplation. As Cusa observes
in the first phrase of De visione Dei: "If I strive in human fashion to transport you to things
divine, I must needs use a comparison of some kind."185 For Pacioli, the mechanical arts (in
general) and architecture (in particular) offered analogical "ladders" for the transmutation of
matter to spirit.
Fig. 6.59. Bench along palace Fig. 6.60. Palace bench, continued.
faade. Extended Caption 25
Extended Caption 25
Fig. 6.61. Portrait of Fra Luca Fig. 6.62. The 72-sided

Pacioli. Hebdomicontadissaedron.
In spite of its arithmetical intonations, the mean associated with Temperance was neither a 101
statistical norm to be maintained nor an objective standard to be unequivocally applied.
Aristotle emphasizes that the mean would be subject to changeas a process of acclimatizing
oneself to circumstances that change from moment to moment, "like the wind." Each person,
facing the same set of circumstances, would (and should) respond differently, according to
individual humoral physiology.186
The lesson from Temperance is that one must learn to "tune" or "temper" oneself, like an 102
instrument, to a given occasion. The mathematical and mechanical attributes of Temperance
offered the quattrocento mind a comprehensible metaphor accounting for human actions and
responses, providing an ideal and means of "adaptable constancy." From this perspective, the
warning that a prince "must have a mind disposed to adapt itself according to the wind, and
as the variations of fortune dictate" was less Machiavellian in a pejorative sense than a
prudent assessment of human nature and a key to self-knowledge.187
The awareness that one was always yet never oneself was a philosophical maxim that served 103
in political necessity. Plato's Symposium describes the complementarity of being and
becoming: "Even during the period for which any living being is said to live and to retain his
identity . . . he does not in fact retain the same attributes, although he is called the same
person; he is always becoming a new being and undergoing a process of loss and reparation,

which affects his hair, his flesh, his bones, his blood, and his whole body. And not only his
body, but his soul as well. No man's character, habits, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, and
fears remain always the same; new ones come into existence and old ones disappear."188
According to the ancient tradition of humoral medicine, extending back through Avicenna and
Galen to Hippocrates, a balanced character could be maintained by carefully tempering the
body's internal humors.189 With the absorption of Greek and Arab scholarship during
Federico's life, this tradition found new purchase in the writings of Platina and his student
Ficino, whose treatise on prolonging life, De vita producenda, relates: "Pythagoras, that
temperate man, praised three things above all else . . . keeping temperance in emotions,
keeping temperance in all foods, and keeping a temperate climate. With such prudence of the
humors, with God's help, you will keep far away the intemperateness which is the cause of
early aging and an early death. If you choose to live each day of your life in this way, the
author of life himself will help you to stay longer with the human race and with him whose
inspiration makes the whole world live."190
The humors were not hermetically contained within the body but were subject, it was 104
believed, to the shifting influences of terrestrial climate and celestial bodies. Consequently, the
salubrity of one's physical environment was a fundamental concern to Vitruvius and Alberti,
who supported the "traditional" practice of haruspices and auspices to determine the
healthfulness of a given location before constructing a private residence or city.191 In book 1 of
De re aedificatore, chapters 3 through 5, Alberti attends to those aspects of climate that are
explicit and obscured, referring to Hippocrates and the need to accumulate historic accounts
(symptoms) of "hidden properties" bestowed by nature to a given locale. "When selecting
the locality, it is not enough to consider only those indications which are obvious and plain to
see, but the less evident should also be noted, and every factor taken into account." At
Urbino, Alberti notes, "water is found as soon as you dig," giving an architecthydraulic
engineer such as Francesco di Giorgio ample opportunity to convey his ingegno (natural
talent, ingenuity) to various humorous inventions, such as Heroic fountains and a thermal
bath, conceived to benefit the health of the duke and life in the palace in general.
Although given to a choleric temperament,196 Federico 105

Fig. 6.63. Formella carving.
was esteemed for his measured speech and was said to
never display anger unless it was deemed (theatrically) appropriate.197 According to
Vespasiano, the duke knew how to moderate his temperament, softening it "with the utmost
prudence."198 Although the biographer does not mention specific techniques used by
Federico, one mode of humoral regulation would have been appropriate diet and exercise.
In De honesta voluptate et valetudine (1470),Bartolomeo Platina offers advice on sleeping, 106

waking, exercise, bathing, and sex, as well as the aesthetics of ambience control for convivial
dining.199 He also devotes a short chapter to choosing a place to live, offering an abbreviated
account of Alberti's recommendations that shows particular concern for the quality of air and
favorable condition of winds to the site. The main subject of the treatise, however, absorbing

nine of its ten books, is food. Platina summarizes: "I have written about food in imitation of
that excellent man, Cato, of Varro, the most learned of all, of Columella, of C. Matius, and of
Caelius Apicius. I would not encourage my readers to extravagance, those whom I have
always in my writing deterred from vice. I have written to help any citizen seeking health,
moderation and elegance of food rather than debauchery and have also shown to posterity
that in this age of ours men had the talents at least to imitate, if not to equal, our ancestors in
any kind of speaking."200
In the introduction, Platina carefully frames the nature of his inquiry into "right" pleasure and 107
health. His wording reflects particular sensitivity concerning Epicureanism,201 one of the
charges for which Sigismondo Malatesta had been excommunicated by Pius II and for which
Dante condemned Ottaviano's ancestral namesake to the Inferno.202 At the heart of his
argument is the importance of pleasure in the senses and food "without debauchery": "Far be
it from Platina to write to the holiest of men [Father Baptista Roverella] about the pleasure
which the intemperate and libidinous derive from self-indulgence and a variety of foods and
from the titillations of sexual interest. I speak about that pleasure which derives from
continence in food and those things which human nature seeks."203 Recalling Socrates's tenet
that "we should eat to live and not live to eat," Platina considers pleasure to be "neutral,
neither good nor bad, as is health."204 Pleasure "will be great and enduring if we embrace with
foresight and moderation what is in accord with nature, shunning what is harmful."205
Following the tenets of his teacher, Vittorino da Feltre, about whom he composed a 108
biography,206 Platina urges that the regimen of diet should be attuned to each person
uniquely: "Not all foods suit all people, but as there are various elements and various
appetites of men according to their humors, as well as various tasks, so ought there to be
various foods so that each may acquire what is agreeable, flavorful, and nutritious."207
According to da Feltre's tenets, Federico's diet was modest: "He ate plain food and no
sweetmeats,208 and drank no wine save that made from such fruits as cherries, pomegranates
or apples"fruits found in the east wall of the Urbino studiolo.209
Elsewhere in the first book Platina includes a short 109

Fig. 6.64. Hunting horn suspended
in the Gubbio studiolo. chapter on exercise, urging that "we are endangered by
too much ease and by too much fatigue; therefore, we
ought to hold to a mean so as not to exchange pleasure for pain."210 As might be expected,
the types of exercise recommended by Platina were to vary from person to person, according
to lifestyle.211 For a military captain such as Federico, exercise included brisk early morning
activity, such as the military maneuvers described previously. Skills of horsemanship,
endurance, and geographical acclimation were also exercised by hunting, one of the duke's
favorite activities.

6.9 On Music and "Right" Leisure
The preponderance of musical images in the studioliin each, they outnumber all items, 110
including military weaponsprovides further insight concerning quattrocento methods of
humoral tempering. Like the d'Este at Ferrara and the Gonzaga at Mantova, the Montefeltro
court was a committed sponsor of music and dance.212 The variety of instruments owned by
the duke was greatly admired by Castiglione, who counted them among the priceless
adornments of the ducal palace. Vespasiano notes that Federico delighted in vocal and
instrumental music alike, maintaining "a fine choir with skilled musicians and many singing
boys," as well as "the most skilful players" of delicate instruments, which the duke preferred to
"trombones and the like."213
On one level, the abundance of instruments reflects the Urbino court's interest in music as a 111
science of proportion revealing consonance between the heavens and earth. According to
tradition,214 Pythagoras had discerned that universal laws could be empirically demonstrated
as mathematical correspondences between sound and vision. One of the instruments used in
these experiments, the monochord, had been devised to show the proportional relation
between the subdivisions of a taut string and audible pitches. A treatise on the monochord
discussing these matters, composed by Ugolino of Orvieto, was present in the ducal library.215
In the early quattrocento, parallel advances in musical 112

Fig. 6.65. Monochord.
counterpoint and visual perspective introduced graphic
methods for envisioning an entire composition according to a vertical and horizontal
orthography of time and space. The belief in a syncretic union between sight and hearing, "the
ministers of reason,"216 is expressed by Alberti: "The very same numbers that cause sounds
to have that concinnitas, pleasing to the ears, can also fill the eyes and mind with wondrous
delight."217 The notion of concinnitas, an "absolute and fundamental rule in Nature,"
established conceptual parameters for the realization of the studioli according to divine
lineaments.218
Two contemporary treatises by Franchino Gaffurio, the 113

Fig. 6.66. Albrecht Drer's
Teorica musicae and the Angelicum ac divinum opus demonstration of perspectival
musice,219 illustrate the Pythagorean experiments with composition.
Extended Caption 26
items found in both studioli.220 The Teorica musicae
presents flutes and recorders such as those found
ubiquitously at Urbino. In an image from the latter treatise, Gaffurio is shown with
12 students, to whom he asserts, "Harmonia est discordia concors" (Harmony is the concord
of discord). At his side are depicted an hourglass and a pair of dividersreferences to the
measure of time and space found together in a cabinet in the Gubbio studioloand the pipes
of an organ, an instrument of particular significance.

Fig. 6.67. Clavichord, Urbino Fig. 6.68. Southeast corner of

studiolo. Urbino intarsia, with miniature
studiolo at left and an organ at
right.
Fig. 6.69. Juhani Castelano,

Florentine organ-maker.
Castiglione notes that "all keyed instruments also are pleasing to the ear, because they 114
produce very perfect consonances, and upon them one can play many things that fill the mind
with musical delight."221 Two splendid keyboard instruments are depicted in each studiolo.
At Urbino, a clavichord rests on the bench below Federico's intarsiated portrait; "strung" with
inlaid metal wires, it suggests that the duke did indeed encourage guests to touch the intarsia.
Directly opposite the chamber, in the niche adjacent to the studiolo-within-a-studiolo, a
curtain has been drawn aside to reveal a positive organ. Along with the Montefeltro shield,
the name "Iuhani Castelano," the organ's maker, is emblazoned on its front.222 The only other
names visible in the studioli are those of classical authors and the duke's own: not even the
names of the intarsists are included.
In addition to the organs' pleasing tonality and precious value, their prominent display in 115
both studioli may also be attributed in part to a political metaphor used by Aristotle in
Politics. "The only virtue special to a ruler is practical wisdom; all the others must be
possessed, so it seems, both by rulers and by ruled. The virtue of a person being ruled is not
practical wisdom but correct opinion; he is rather like a person who makes the [organ] pipes,
while the ruler is the one who can play them."223
There are further associations for these keyed instruments. From the tenth century, the pipes 116
of an organ were commonly called "muses," an evocative detail consistent with the placement
of the Castellano organ in the "contemplative" niche of the east wall.224 Polyhymnia, the muse
of sacred song, is traditionally represented by the organ. The clavichord, meanwhile,
represented an updated version of the monochord,225 reflecting innovations in the
compositional methods of counterpoint and musical notation that enabled a player to intone
the "perfect consonances" of multiple voices simultaneously. In a contrapuntal work such as a
fugue (or ricercar), the leading phrase226 that sets the pattern of movement for the other
voices was called the Dux. All the more fitting, then, that this metaphor of divine rule would
have been placed beneath the duke's portrait.
Returning to Polyhymnia: evocation of the muses would be a most appropriate theme for the 117
studioli. For his study, Leonello d'Este had commissioned a cycle of allegorical portraits of the
muses, and we recall the location of the Tempietto delle Muse directly below the Urbino
studiolo. As guides to memory, attributes of the muses would call to mind the various

disciplines of learning and arts of expression that they governed. At Urbino, Urania
(astronomy) is represented by the dividers, astrolabe, and armillary sphere; Erato (lyric and
love poetry) by the timbre on the bench; Euterpe (lyric poetry) by the abundance of flutes;
Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry) by the viol; Terpsichore (popular song and dance) by the
lira da braccio; and Apollo, who frequently accompanies the muses as the god of music, is
represented by the lute.227
On first analysis, three muses appear to be missing from the Urbino studiolo: Melpomene 118
(tragedy); Calliope (epic poetry), usually seen with a trumpet (an instrument the duke
disliked); and Clio (history), typically shown with a swan. Consistent with the "hidden"
references to the virtues and liberal arts, it is probable that these three are represented by
other means. Cheles suggests that the classical authors named in the intarsia are likely
candidates: the epic poets O[M]E[RO] and [VIR]GILIO would be ideal ambassadors for
Calliope, and [SE]NACA, renowned also for his tragedies, would be a suitable stand-in for
Melpomene.228 There is, as yet, no discernable image for Clio; given the presence of the other
muses, however, it is likely that her cipher has been obscured by time (or design) and simply
remains undetected.
Fig. 6.70. The jingle ring evokes Fig. 6.71. Rebec and its bow,
Erato, muse of lyric and love partially obscured behind a cabinet
poetry. door.
In the Gubbio studiolo, the muses are more easily accounted for. Urania is represented by the 119
armillary sphere, Euterpe by flutes, Thalia by the rebec, Melpomene by the hunting horn,
Terpsichore by the cittern, Erato by the jingle ring, and Polyhymnia by the organ. It is likely
that Calliope, usually represented by a trumpet, is signified by the Virgilian verses on the
lectern. Clio's swan is also missing at Gubbio, although it is difficult to imagine that the muse
of History would not have been figured into both studioli by some erudite and clever means.
We might also note that there are two instruments with broken strings at Gubbio, Apollo's
lute and harp, as compared with the single lute at Urbino.
Contemplation of the muses and the "music of the spheres" was not, it should be stressed, a 120
purely intellectual activity. From Pythagoras to Castiglione, music was perceived as a
governing agency by which to attune one's soul to beneficial aspects and influences of the
heavens. In Timaeus, Plato writes that "all audible musical sound is given to us for the sake of
harmony, which has motions akin to the orbits in our soul,"229 a sentiment Castiglione
echoed: "The world is composed of music . . . the heavens make harmony in their moving,
and . . . the soul, being ordered in like fashion, awakes and as it were revives its powers
through music."230

In concert with diet and exercise, it was believed that the proper musical mode could temper 121
the internal humors, reviving one's powers according to need and occasion. "If the vapors
exhaled from vegetable life are terrific for your life," asks Ficino, "how useful would you say
songs are? How useful those in the air to the airy spirit, those that are harmonious to the
harmonious spirit, songs that are warm and lively to the lively spirit, and how useful are songs
full of feeling and conceived in reason to the sensitive and rational spirit?"231
In Politics, Aristotle lists three classes of melodiesethical (ethos), active (praktika), and 122
exciting (enthousiasmos)that were believed to evoke three benefits of music: education,
catharsis, and civilized relaxation and relief after tension.232 Although all three melodies
could lead to action, a desired musical effect called for the appropriate harmonia, or mode,
which was seen as a way of fitting together an "ordered combination or construction of
notes."233 For education Aristotle recommends an ethical mode such as Dorian or Lydian,
while the Phrygian harmonia is described as "a kind of agitation by which some people are
liable to be possessed," arousing religious catharsis and orgiastic Bacchic frenzy.234
Fig. 6.72. The military instruments Fig. 6.73. Intarsiated and

of the pipe and tabor, Gubbio burnished score of Bella gerit,
studiolo. Urbino studiolo.
To prepare for battle, a military leader such as Federico required active melodies to stir the 123
cholera within himself and among his troops. The pipes and tabor, instruments devised for
this mode of agitation, are depicted in both studioli. At Urbino, moreover, a recipe for raising
the red bile of the heart is found in a musical score in the west wall intarsia. "Bella gerit" is a
marching air that celebrates the duke's leadership. In its lyrics, "Bella gerit" further entwines
the themes of action/contemplation and war/peace by extolling Federico's reconciliation of
public and private life: "Federico, the greatest leader of all Italians, outdoors and at home, he
fights wars and cultivates the Muses."235
Counterposed with the martial "Bella gerit," another 124

Fig. 6.74. Intarsiated and
musical score in the Urbino intarsia suggests how the burnished score of J'ay pris
muses (in this case, Erato) could assist in stirring other amour, Urbino studiolo.
sorts of emotions, softening the duke's temperament.
"J'ay pris amour," a chanson popular among the courts, treats the courtship of love and
fortune and is likely a commemoration of Battista Sforza, after whose death the duke did not
remarry.236
J'ay pris amour en ma devise

Pour conqurir joyeuset.
Heureux seray en cest t
Si puis venir mon emprise.

I've decked my shield with love's device

To make a captive out of joy;
Content I'll on that summit rest,
Should fortune crown my enterprise.237
Plato and Aristotle asserted that times of peace and relaxation called for well-tempered 125
activities, in order to restrain bilious and Bacchic inclinations. They concurred that music
provided an ideal philosophy for leisure:238 Aristotle perceived music to contribute to
"civilised pursuits" and "practical wisdom," providing "a stimulus to virtue . . . by accustoming
men to be able to enjoy themselves in the right way."239 Plato declared that music "is not to
be used, as is commonly thought, to give irrational pleasure, but as a heaven-sent ally in
reducing to order and harmony any disharmony in the revolutions within us."240
Encompassing these views, Marsilio Ficino wrote extensively on the medicinal properties of 126
music.241 In book 1 of Liber de vita, Ficino urges that a dissonant or sad soul should strum
the lyre (lute or harp) to escape the bitterness of chronic melancholy, the black humor
attributed to Saturn.242 Citing Mercurius, Pythagoras, and Plato, he stresses the importance
of tempering one's studies with pleasure"let meditation walk no further than pleasure, and
even a little behind"in an admixture of gravity and levity best described by the term
jocoseriosity.243 "Venus fertilizes the body, and stimulates fertility. Saturn presses the mind,
pregnant by his seed, to give birth. You should therefore remember this proverb: do not be
too busy in anything, and restrain your pleasure with the reigns of prudence, for both of these
Gods [Venus and Saturn] give birth."244 These comments suggest that the term Citharae
found in Clemente da Urbino's medal and the Tempietto delle Musebears a double
significance, referring as much to Venus and her revitalizing influence on thought as to the
cittern's association with Terpsichore. Recalling Ficino's recommendations for a figure of the
universe,245 it is possible that the text in the Tempietto delle Muse evoked Venus's birthplace
to enhance the chamber's use as a space for contemplative reflection.
Consistent with Ficino's recommendations, a drawing by 127

Fig. 6.75. Carpaccio's sketch of a
monk listening to musicians tuning Carpaccio suggests that many (if not all) of the
up in a studiolo. instruments represented in the studioli were likely
performed therein, including those instruments bearing
connotations of the "music of the spheres," such as the clavichord, organ, and lute.246 Other
instruments, like the cittern found at Gubbio, were as readily available in a tavern as in a
princely studiolo. Associated with Venus as well as Terpsichore, the cittern was strung with
metal wire to ensure reliable tuning for impromptu use.247 With their wood paneling, one can
imagine that the studioli offer resonant settings for listening to music, which should be
counted among the duke's activities in the Urbino studiolo. Not only could contemplation be
active, it could be enjoyable.

6.10 On Chess
Although accounts of the studioli evoke an ambience of quiet and stateliness, the company 128
shared therein was not always grave. As Vespasiano notes, following the evening meal, "the
Duke would remain for a time to see if anyone had aught to say, and if not he would go with
the leading nobles and gentlemen into his closet and talk freely with them."248 At day's end,
then, the studiolo offered a convivial setting for conversation and leisure.
It is tempting to speculate on the nature of these conversations and activities: To what degree 129
would they have been political? Or would Federico and his guests have diplomatically avoided
or only lightly alluded to serious matters? In the north wall intarsia, two spoons in an opened
container of candied fruit suggest that the studiolo was shared as a delightful dessert to the
day's events.249 One is also reminded of the humorous Intercoenales, or after-dinner stories,
that Alberti had modeled after the satirical works of such ancient writers as Lucian, who is
well represented in the ducal library.250
In addition to music and conversation, from the chessboard and pieces depicted in the west 130
wall, it seems more than likely that certain games were played in the studiolo. Cheles has
noted that "the presence of a game of chess in a study is not unusual: Piero de' Medici kept
one in his scrittoio."251 This is a point well made; in On Right Pleasure, Platina includes
chess in his recommendations for the "right" types of games for a gentleman's leisure, along
with dice and "various kinds of cards with painted pictures."252
Cheles and Tenzer concur that the symbolic relation between chess and warfare would be a 131
most suitable theme for a condottiere. Cheles states simply, "[Chess] involves two antagonistic
sides of which the strongest wins," noting that this would accord with the proximity of the
impresa of the tenacious ostrich in the dado beneath.253 Tenzer adds: "The carved pieces
should be associated with skill of mind predominating over Fortune to achieve victory, not
only in the game of chess but also in the more serious pursuit of war."254
These interpretations posit that a military leader such as 132

Fig. 6.76. Chess pieces, Urbino
studiolo. Federico would have considered chess a pleasurable
training ground for exercising strategy and further
enjoining the active and contemplative lives.255 There is more to discover through this image.
Tenzer rightly asserts that the chessboard and pieces function "on a dual level, as disguised
symbols."256 In addition to its militaristic character, the game would have represented well
the intricacies of political and professional competition for a quattrocento condottiere.
Further inquiry reveals that chess might have represented not just two but several levels of
association for the duke.
Aside from its overt play of stratagem, there are circumstantial reasons for the militaristic 133
overtones of chess. Although chess had arrived in Spain in the tenth century by way of the
Moors, its presence in Italy by the 11th century followed trade routes into the Orient, as well as

the influence of Persian culture on soldiers who had participated in the Crusades. Owing to its
origins in the land of the "infidels"257 as well as its popularity among soldiers, chess
accumulated certain disreputable associations. In late medieval Italy, gambling on games of
chess, dice, and cards offered diversion for soldiers during frequent and lengthy sieges in the
wars between the Guelf and Ghibelline.
Nor were men of the cloth immune from the allure of gaming. In 1061, Cardinal Damianus, 134
bishop of Ostia, wrote to a Florentine bishop who had been discovered playing chess in
public: "Was it right, I say, and consistent with thy duty to sport away thy evenings amidst the
vanity of chess, and defile the hand which offers up the body of the Lord, the tongue that
mediates between God and man, with the pollution of a sacrilegious game?" The Florentine
bishop expiated the offense of playing chess "by three recitations of the Psalter, by washing
the feet of 12 poor persons, and by giving them liberal alms."258
Chess, it appears, had a checkered past: it was not always a game of the courts.259 It became 135
"courtly" due to the efforts of clergy who seized on the game's popularity as an opportunity to
fashion a moralized model for the ideal city. When Platina, a former soldier, includes chess,
dice, and cards among the "right" pleasures for a gentleman, we recognize the influence of
these earlier efforts and of Platina's own mentors.260 During the Congress of Mantua in 1459,
Cardinal Bessarion, Nicholas of Cusa, and Pope Pius II "played" with the Carte de trionfi
Platina's "cards with painted pictures." These cards, when placed edge to edge, were said to
form "a symbolic ladder leading from Heaven to earth."261
Humanist sources also provided exemplary uses for dice. In the introduction to book 5, 136
chapter 3, of Vitruvius we find a murky passage concerning Pythagoras and his followers, who
"write their rules, cube fashion," in 216 lines (the cube of six, a "perfect" number) and
proclaim, "Not more than three cubes should be in one treatise." Fortunately, Vitruvius
elaborates: "When a cube is thrown, on whatever part it rests, it retains its stability unmoved
so long as it is untouched, like the dice which players throw in a tray. Now this analogy they
seem to have taken from the fact that this number of verses, like a cube upon whatever sense
it falls, makes the memory there stable and unmoved. Greek comic poets also, interposing the
canticum sung by the chorus, divided the spaces of their plays. Thus making the parts cube
fashion, they relieve by intervals the delivery of the author's words."262 This passage offered
humanists an example of how the ancients had used dice for rhetorical purposes. Later, in his
1556 edition of Vitruvius, Daniele Barbaro would meditate on this passage in his discussion
on how to construct an ideal treatise.263
An indirect yet informative episode links chess with Montefeltro family history. In 1266, a 137
Saracen chess player named Buzecca played three simultaneous matches, blindfolded, against
three Florentine masters.264 The matches were played to great fanfare before the podest

Guido Novello in the Florence's Palazzo del Popolo and were later commemorated by a fresco
in the castle at Poppi.265 Novello's military captain was Buonconte da Montefeltro, Federico's
ancestor, whom Dante would remember in Purgatorio (5.8893).266
There are a few curious details about this event. Buzecca267 reputedly played two of the 138
matches "by memory," and the third "by sight," winning two and drawing on the other.
Admittedly, the logistics are difficult to sort outif Buzecca was blindfolded, how could he
have played two matches by memory and one by sight? And how exactly would one play chess
blindfolded? Aside from these lacunae, the admiration for this opponent revolved around his
formidable memory, demonstrated by the play of chess.
In the 13th century, the popularization of chess in Europe and on the Italic peninsula 139
stimulated the invention of numerous "problems" (partite) that were frequently accompanied
by illustrations and compiled into manuscripts. The purpose of these manuscripts, in many
ways quite similar to that of chess manuals of today, was to assist players in visualizing (and
thus conveying to the memory) various configurations or situations that one might encounter
during match play. As apparent from the prologue of one of these manuscripts, the Bonus
socius (Good companion), these problems were to be learned by heart and to serve as the
foundation for further invention, thereby perfecting one's knowledge "through exercise of
intellect": "In consequence of the sin of the first man the cell of memory of the human
generation is enfeebled; so that all is forgotten that is not before your eyes, or of which you are
not continually thinking. It is just the same as placing something in a little bag containing
holes. It falls out at once, also what passes in one ear goes out the other immediately. . . . For
all these reasons I [Bonus Socius] have taken the trouble to collect into this book all the
problems which I have seen or have discovered in trying to invent new ones."268
As a chess match unfolds, each player must determine which pieces to protect and which to 140
exchangewhether advantageously, evenly, or to a disadvantage. A well-trained memory is
essential for a player to envision and selectfrom the numerous combinations available to the
mind's eyethose tactical "moves" that cause the most advantageous resolution of a given
partita. As Tenzer notes, chance never intrudes into a chess match: the board thus offers an
ideal theater for rational thought, an evenly measured setting in which to exercise the
retention, inventiveness, and perspicacity of one's intellect.
In the late quattrocento, associations between chess and memory remained strong. At the 141
conclusion of his Ars memorativa, Jacobus Publicius includes a group of diagrams that he
assures will "delight the soul, sharpen the talent, and express the signs of memory very
well."269 Among them he includes the image of a chessboard and a list of its pieces, as well as
a "Porphyrian Tree," which, as Henry Bayerle and Mary Carruthers have noted, "played an
important role in Raymond Lull's classification of universal knowledge."270 There is no
further explanation of these particular diagrams, reflecting the likelihood that at the time,
there need not have been.

The list of the chess pieces bears mention: on either side of the king and queen are the 142
"Counts" (bishops), knights, and castles (termed "Governors"). Each pawn has its own
evocative designation; the king's pawn is referred to as the "Treasurer," and the queen's pawn
is listed as "Doctor." On the king's flank, bishop's pawn is "Scribe," knight's pawn is "Smith,"
and castle's pawn is "Farmer." Meanwhile, on the queen's side the bishop's pawn is
"Innkeeper," knight's pawn is "Toll-gatherer," and castle's pawn is "Jester."
A more direct association between Federico and chess may be determined from the pieces 143
displayed. Although Cheles and Tenzer describe them summarily as "pawns," the pieces are
clearly not all the same. Pier Luigi Bagatin is more precise: "Si riconoscono una torre e un
alfiere" (One recognizes a castle and a bishop).271 The term alfiere (bishop) provides a
valuable clue; it derives from the Arabic word for "elephant."272 As Jupiter's eagle was the
heraldic emblem for the Montefeltro, so the elephant was the emblem for Federico's nemesis,
Sigismondo Malatesta. Following Federico's eventual triumph in this rivalry, Giovanni Santi
wrote: "Heaven decided that the eagle, endowed with prudence and fortitude, courage and
glory, would bite the elephant's heart."273
There is another, more curious, association between Federico and chess. In the same year, 144
1474, that Duke Federico received the Order of the Garter from the king of England, William
Caxton's Playe of the Chesse, the second book mechanically printed in English, was dedicated
to Prince George, the king's eldest brother. Federico was invested at Grottoferrata that
autumn and commissioned his relative Pietro degli Ubaldini to travel to England to receive
the order by proxy on 22 August 1475. The colophon of the first edition of Playe of the Chesse
reads: "Fynyfshid the last day of marche the yer of our lord god. a thousand foure honderd
and lxxiiii." Even allowing for a delay in transit from Bruges (where Caxton was printing) to
England, it is likely that news of this book and its subject would have reached the court of
Urbino through Ubaldini.
Fig. 6.77. Order of the Garter, Fig. 6.78. Ceiling of quarters

Gubbio studiolo. reserved for the King of England,
Extended Caption 27 in the Urbino ducal palace.
Extended Caption 27
Fig. 6.79. Detail from ceiling of the

King of England's quarters.
Extended Caption 27
Like several of Caxton's early printed books, the Playe of the Chesse was a translation of an 145
earlier work, the Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium ac popularium super ludo
scachorum. Its author, Jacopo de Cessoles, the master of theology of the Dominicans at
Reims, had seized on the chessboard as a memorable setting for a series of homilies in which
he aimed to transform chess from a game of ill repute into a metaphor for the ideal city. For

these homilies, Cessoles was concerned less with the practice of chessmanship than with the
practical ethics of citizenship and governance. In place of illustrated problems, he combined
aspects of the De regimine principium, a contemporary treatise on princely rule composed by
the Augustinian Egidius Romanus,274 with a historic account of the chessboard and
commentaries on each chess piece.
According to this history, the philosopher Philometor"which is as moche to saye in english 146
as he that loveth Justice and mesure"275invented the game of chess in order to transform
King Evilmerodach, who had committed a host of copiously illustrated atrocities, into a
benevolent ruler. Philometer fashioned the gaming board after the city of Babylon, with sixty-
four squares bounded by a wall and the Tower of Babel in one corner. As philosopher and
king proceed with their game, Philometor instructs the king on the value of each piece and
how the finest strategy calls for all pieces to work in concert. No individual piecenot even
the king or queenpossesses unlimited power or may guarantee victory without the strategic
coordination of all pieces. Cessoles/Caxton expounds on this thought: "Among all the evil
conditions and signs that may be in a man the first and greatest is when he feareth not / nor
dreadeth to displease and bring the wrath of god by synne . . . nor take heed of them who repr
[o]ve him and his vices / but flee them / In such wise as the emperor Nero / who fled his
master Seneca."276
For Cessoles, each individual piece (pawn, knight, king) represented a citizen, whose 147
influential powers (or range of movement, determined as the rules evolved) corresponded to
their occupation and hierarchical status in the community. As such, chess represented an
ethical exercise in which each piece was invested with a symbolic civic and moral duty. As
seen later in Publicius's treatise, the queen's pawn represented physicians, spicers, and
apothecaries, who are responsible for the queen's healththey are said to know the harmony
of the pulses like the harmony of music 277and whose vast learning encompasses the
"proportions of letters of grammar," as well as the arts of cosmology and cosmetics. Among
these learned doctors, "the master of rhetorique is the chief master in speculatyf."278
Cessoles's moralization of chess, adroitly superimposed on the plan of Babylon (traditionally 148
considered by Judeo-Christians to be the devil's city),279 marked an attempt to shift the
game's allure toward noble aspirations. From an educational standpoint, chess engages the
memory to speculate beyond a present circumstance toward the future, expanding one's
capacity to plan strategies accordingly. As such, the practice of chess could be readily
dovetailed with the cultivation of Prudence. Through the analogy of the chessboard with the
city, as well as the chess pieces with the various trades practiced by a city's inhabitants,
Cessoles invented a powerful mnemonic diagram for princes and commoners alike, with the

reticulated board and its pieces offering a model by which to contemplate the integrated
workings of an ideal cityproportionately measured, guided by just and prudent leaders and
unassailed by Fortuna.
6.11 On Fortune
Fortune, often in mid-course and sometimes near the end, shatters our frail and
vain designs, and sometimes wrecks them before the haven can be even seen
afar.
Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 240
As night falls on the ideal summer day at Urbino and the duke's guests retire to their quarters, 149
other activities in the palace are just beginning. Directly overhead, on the rooftop balcony
above the studiolo, Paul of Middleburg has commenced observations of the night sky,
employing many of the devices represented in the studioli. And where, one wonders, has
Federico's "shadow" been throughout this ideal day? It is hard to imagine that Ottaviano, who
governed Urbino in the duke's absence, was unoccupied on his brother's return. Would he
have joined Federico and his guests in the studiolo for diplomatic negotiations by day and
leisurely activities at night? Or was the Prince of Astrology already above the starry ceiling of
the studiolo with Paul of Middleburg, descrying signs from the heavens regarding the health of
the duke and dukedom? Would Federico have joined them, at the summit of his symbolic
percorso, to contemplate the night sky and bathe in its beneficial celestial influences, as Ficino
recommends?280 And after September 10, 1482, when Federico's soul had scaled the stars,
would Guidobaldo have accompanied his uncle to the observatory for instruction in the music
of the spheres? Did astrology enable Ottaviano to consort with Federico and other departed
souls in a dialogue of Euclidean geometry? Would divine speculation bring the young prince
closer to his departed father's counsel?
Etymologically, the occult signifies that which is "hidden" from sight and cannot be known. 150
For the quattrocento, as now, the unknown consisted of future events, personal fate, and the
unpredictable influences of fortune.281 Although stars did not determine human action, as
physicians like Ficino were careful to note, they were believed to convey divine decrees by
their arrangements, enabling observant humans to calibrate their thoughts and actions to
beneficially influence their personal destinies. At the beginning of his treatise on prolonging
life, Ficino assures his reader: "Long life is not only a matter of what the Fates have put in
store for use from the beginning, but something our diligence takes care of as well. The
astrologers admit this, too, when they talk about Selections and Images, and it is confirmed by
the diligent care of doctors and by experience itself."282
At Urbino, as at Ficino's Platonic Academy, occult speculation focused on practices of well- 151
tempered living. If signs and hidden influences from the heavens and within oneself could be
decrypted, it was believed, one might conduct oneself fruitfully in human affairs.283

Moreover, if the universe operated as a harmonious musical mechanism, then stones, plants,
and animals might assist in conveying the powers of their governing stars,284 and humans
could tune their habits beneficially by diet, talismans, music, and architecture. Ficino
elaborates:
There is a Platonic saying that confirms this, too, that this machine of the world
is so connected that heavenly things are on earth in an earthly condition, and
earthly things are in heaven in a heavenly dignity; and heavenly things are
present in the hidden life of the world, and in the mind, the queen of the world,
where they are its vital and intellectual property, its excellence. Through these
bodies overhead, some people even think that magic can somehow draw down
these heavenly things at the right times to men, making the lower things in
agreement with the higher, and that magic can even unite the celestial bodies to
us through the celestial things overhead, or work them inside us, where one can
finally see them.285
What is the nature of the "magic" that Ficino describes? 152

Fig. 6.80. Francesco di Giorgio
asserted that music is necessary for Recondite interests percolated at Urbino as early as the
the conference and proportion of 1470s. Through the influences of such hermetic
any building.
philosophers as Ludovico Lazzarelli286 and Guglielmo
Raimondo de Moncada,287 art and scholarship at Urbino
received an infusion of ancient myths, astrology, the Jewish kabbalah,288 and the Muslim
Koran. Attempts at the court to reconcile these alternative forms of wisdom with Christian
mores289 continued the efforts of Cusa290 and Bessarion and laid the groundwork for two
controversial works published in 1489, Ficino's Book of Life and Pico della Mirandola's
Heptaplus. As an elaboration of the teachings of de Moncada, with whom Pico studied at
Perugia in 1486, Heptaplus demonstrated a Christianized kabbalism that combined biblical
and Platonic accounts of the creation.291 In a similar vein, the subsequent architectural
writings of Pacioli interpreted alchemical transmutation as spiritual epiphany, evinced
through mental and material craft.292
How, then, did one attract heavenly influences and "work them inside" oneself? "This is done 153
with a certain art," Ficino advises, by "gathering many things" that are then "chopped up,
mixed together, and digested under a certain star according to medicine and astrology."293
Although this comment suggests dietetic recipes (which the Book of Life offers in plenitude),
Ficino is also referring to ingredients digested by the memoryAugustine's "stomach of the
mind"including such ruminatory staples as letters, numbers, and ideas. As the food of
thought, these are "chopped up" and "mixed together" by the recombinatory mechanics of
memory wheels and the kabbalah.
There was also a more direct means of gathering stellar rays. In the Book of Life, Ficino 154
follows the advice of authors like Avicenna and Pietro d'Abano,294 whom he frequently cites,
elaborating on an ancient model of universal pneumatology that binds all substances and
living creatures together in an unceasing exchange of spiritual influences. These spirits were
believed to flow from the stars through the eyes into the human heart, where they

communicated with the body through the blood. Through contemplation, this blood-spirit
(Publicius's psychical pneuma) was purified in the chambers of the brain, allowing one's soul
to ascend like a winged eye from the earthbound concerns of the body.
In his recommendations for making a universal figure for 155

Fig. 6.81. Leonardo's architectonic
interpretation of the heart as a contemplation, Ficino urges that one should "not just
furnace. look at" an image such as an armillary sphere but to
"reflect on it in the soul."295 Although the entire Urbino
studiolo might well be considered such a universal figure, certain images are ideal for
sustaining wonderment in an observer. Beside the central image of the city in the east wall, to
which we will return momentarily, the heptagonal figure offers a perpetual motion machine
by which to contemplate the interconnection of worldly and divine wisdom.
Fig. 6.82. Heptagonal diagram

after figure at Urbino studiolo.
Extended Caption 28
Other contemplative figures literally encircle the studiolo. 156
Fig. 6.83. Bench wheels, Urbino Fig. 6.84. Federico on biga with
studiolo. cardinal virtues.
Virtuous images and maxims inlaid in the studioli offer tracks for the observer's gaze. In 157
addition to the top-to-bottom practice of ekphrasis described earlier, the studioli architecture
offered innumerable routes for contemplation, lifting the mind's eye from the sensual world
toward the heavens by select examples of heroes, edifying phrases, and icons. At Urbino, the
arrangement of these tracks leads to the central image of the east wall and back to questions
posed earlier in this investigation. Is the distant city depicted in the intarsia Urbino itself?
Why is the piazza in the foreground empty? Why is there no apparent historia?
With classical and medieval memory traditions in mind, 158

Fig. 6.85. Civic space, east wall of
Urbino studiolo. it appears that the entire studiolo provided subject
matter for contemplation, while the empty space of the
ideal city furnished the dukes with a locus solus,296 a civic theater in small compass, in which
to envision consequences of policy and rehearse rhetorical deliberations.297 The emptiness of
this urban setting also reflects, perhaps, the impossibility of realizing the ideal in the tangle of
human affairs. Even if the city viewed in the distance were intended to evoke Urbino,
countering Tenzer's observations, the similitude would present Urbino as an allusion to the
City of God and not as the ideal city in and of itself. This is a critical distinction. While the
ideal state had provided a rhetorical commonplace for close to two millennia, it remained for

the quattrocento a dream as inaccessible to this world as Plato's Republic or Augustine's City
of God.298 Like Plato, Federico and his cohorts considered an ideal state oxymoronic to the
human condition, a vision to be contemplated and aspired to, yet never "actualized." The
literalization of the City of God on earth, manifest in the following century by El Escorial in
Spain, was endemic to temporal concerns after overseas voyages had ruptured and doubled
the known world.299
For the quattrocento, as in previous centuries, the ideal 159

Fig. 6.86. Ideal city, painted at
city offered a skopos, a destination attained after the end Urbino, late quattrocento.
of time by living according to virtuous principles in this
life. "We should not value this human existence which has been bestowed upon us except in
so far as it prepares us for the future state."300 For Federico and his mentor Piccolomini/Pius
II, this future state remained tantalizingly beyond (or just to the side of) the vanishing
point301 of the human horizon. And, like Pacioli's subsequent observation that a visible point
is by mathematical definition not a point,302 any image of the ideal city was understood to be
a mere foreshadowing of the heavenly mansions of the "future state." As a rebus for
contemplation, then, the ideal city represented an image of concord drawn through the macro-
and micro-architecture of the cosmos, aligning the music of the spheres with the city, one's
home, private study, and the ark of memory preserved in the heart of the mind.303 Amid this
sequence of nested vessels, an occupant of the Urbino studiolo is simultaneously contained
within and a container of divine wisdom, embodying the erotic tension of created and creator
described by Plato in Timaeus.304
Consequently, the influence of concinnitas on the studioli architecture did not represent an 160
imposition of reason onto nature but rather a belief in an underlying order that might rectify
human nature and sustain a productive balance in human affairs.305 To this end, in a
principality governed by the divine right of birth, it was the prerogative of the ideal prince to
establish just laws; the role of the ideal courtier, Castiglione emphasizes, was to assist in
upholding these laws. Likewise, the machines of Brunelleschi, di Giorgio, and da Vinci
operated according to laws that were believed analogous to visible processes in the earth and
heavens: machines transmitted deeply rooted meditational and theological associations that
conditioned body and mind. Although nature and artifice were considered dialectically distinct
in the quattrocento mind, they were not polarized. As Publicius asserts, "We consider it
established that nature is not superior to craft, nor art to nature."306
Through divine ratios, it was believed, humans could align the "coarse" material wisdom of 161
Minerva with the workings of the universe. Guided by the ministers of reason, sight and
hearing, architects and artists channeled beneficial influences through well-proportioned
works whose decorum tuned human action to the music of the spheres. Under the aegis of
concinnitas, with all things harmoniously enjoined, Pietro Bembo could elegize: "beautiful
sky, beautiful earth, beautiful sea, beautiful rivers, beautiful lands, beautiful woods, trees,

gardens; beautiful cities, beautiful churches, houses, armies."307 This fundamental belief in a
direct correspondence between beauty and truth, demonstrable through mathematical
proportion (ratio) and rhetorical logic (oratio), persisted into the Enlightenment.308
Fig. 6.87. Lute with broken strings, Fig. 6.88. North corner of Gubbio
Urbino studiolo. studiolo.
A question remains concerning the musical instruments. If the studioli embody harmony and 162
concinnitas, why then does each studiolo present instruments with broken strings? On first
reading, it is plausible that a subject as thin and "random" as a broken string would have
afforded intarsists the opportunity to display their clever wisdom through a detail that evokes
surprise and delight. At Urbino, the broken string of a lute spirals gracefully inward. At Gubbio
we find two instruments with broken stringsa lute and a St. David's harp. Each of these
"Apollonian" instruments was historically referred to as a lyre and demanded attentive
tuning: in the cabinet below the harp we find its tuning mechanism, whose tau-like shape
evokes the spiritual temperament of the Franciscan Order.309
These subtleties are easily taken for granted until we consider a passage from Plato's Phaedo, 163
which recounts the final hours of Socrates's life. In this inquiry on the mortal coil and the
immortality of the soul, the character Simmias wonders: "Harmony is a thing invisible,
incorporeal, perfect, divine, existing in the lyre which is harmonized, but [is it perhaps] that
the lyre and the strings are matter and material, composite, earthy, and akin to mortality?
And when someone breaks the lyre, or cuts and rends the strings . . . ."310 If the lyre strings
represent the corporeal body, is the spiraling figure at Urbino perhaps a memorial gesture to
Battista Sforza? Do the broken lute and harp strings at Gubbio refer to the departed souls of
Guidobaldo's parents? And if so, then where would their souls have alighted?
"After death," Plato offers, "the genius of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads 164
him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together."311 At Urbino this "certain
place" is evoked, figuratively and literally, in the architecture of the studiolo. The Virgilian
paraphrase "virtutibus itur ad astra" suggests that one might enter the pantheon of communal
memory by virtuous deeds, joining the elect members of uomini illustri depicted above the
intarsia.312 It is likely that the astral significance of this paraphrase was also taken more
literally. In Timaeus, Plato relates that the soul descends from the stars and, on the death of
its mortal body, returns to the firmament by reincarnation, a theme that recurs in Dante's
Paradiso (4.4960) and several quattrocento works.313 Ficino and Giovanni Santi each
declared that Federico's soul (alma) had been sent to earth by Jupiter to resuscitate ancient
wisdom.314 At Gubbio the Montefeltro eagle, described by Santi as "l'ucel di Giove" (the bird
of Jupiter), surmounts an intarsiated helmet believed to have been modeled on an original by
Antonio Pollaiuolo, an artist directly associated with Ficino's Platonic Academy.

Fig. 6.89. Federico's helmet and

scepter, Gubbio studiolo.
Extended Caption 30
As a departure from the worldly body, contemplation was viewed as a habitual enactment of 165
death that purified one's soul in preparation for its eventual reunion with the firmament.
Echoing Plato and Ficino, Castiglione advises:
Let us, then, direct all the thoughts and forces of our soul to this most sacred
light, which shows us the way that leads to heaven; and following after it, let us
lay aside the passions wherewith we were clothed at our fall, and by the stairway
that bears the shadow of sensual beauty on its lowest step, let us mount to the
lofty mansion where dwells the heavenly, lovely and true beauty, which lies
hidden in the inmost secret recesses of God, so that profane eyes cannot behold
it. Here we shall find a most happy end to our desires, true rest from our toil,
certain cure for our miseries, most wholesome medicine for our diseases, safest
refuge from the boisterous storms of this life's tempestuous sea.315
In spite of remarkably careful preparations, fortune did not smile on Federico's son. 166
Guidobaldo was crippled with symptoms of podagra (gout), possibly as a result of poisoning,
which greatly reduced his effectiveness as a condottiere and rendered him unable to
participate in the evening festivities immortalized by Castiglione.316 Unlike his "invincible"
father, Guidobaldo was twice exiled from Urbino. On one of these occasions, Guidobaldo
suffered the indignity of losing the "impregnable" castle of San Leo, the heart of the
Montefeltro dynasty.317 During the second exile, in 1502, the ducal palaces at Urbino and
Gubbio were plundered: numerous precious items were stolen or destroyed and the
manuscripts of Federico's famed library, their covers torn off, were removed to Forl.318 Even
after Guidobaldo returned to power, his rule was overshadowed by his inability to produce an
heir. Although the official adoption of his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, ultimately
proved beneficial for the dukedom, the line of the Montefeltro concluded with the artistic and
intellectual progeny conceived by Federico, Guidobaldo, and the members of the Urbino court.
Their legacy offers material evidence to the roles of the studioli in preparing the Montefeltro
dukes for worldly and otherworldly matters, demonstrating the capacity for architecture to
provide theaters for epiphany between the known and the unknowable.

Notes
Note 1: For the complete narrative, see Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 109. Also
Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 27475.
Note 2: "Watchtowers should stand out above the building, to make any disturbances easier to
trace." Alberti, Art of Building, 5.3.121.
Note 4: Scala a lumaca, or "snail stairs," was and remains a common expression for a spiral
staircase.
Note 5: Although a side exit was available near the base of the tower, for the morning exercise on
horseback the duke and his companions probably left the entrance court by way of a spiral ramp
devised by Francesco di Giorgio. Alberti professes "no objections" to a private side door to the palace
"for the master of the house alone" that enables him "to let in secret couriers and messengers, and to
go out whenever the occasion and circumstances demand." Art of Building, 5.2.120.
Note 6: The stables were adjacent to the thermal bath, whose water was heated by a kitchen fire
behind a wall. See also Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 99112.
Note 7: Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and Malatesta, 17.
Note 8: The author of the Ordine et officij is not known for certain, but several have convincingly
suggested Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, at some point during the 1480s (in preparation for, perhaps, or in
response to his role as regent?). Ordine et officij, ed. Eiche.
Note 9: See Pedro Berreguete's official portrait of Federico and Guidobaldo. In another possible
association, Vespasiano notes that Federico supported the "friars of Scopeto." Vespasiano da Bisticci,
Note 10: To the end of his life, as Vespasiano noted, the duke attended Mass every morning.
Although it would have been appropriate for Federico to pray in the cappella, as part of his symbolic
ascent from body to spirit, it is uncertain whether he would have received Mass therein. Pernis,
"Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 150n69.
Note 11: "Haec Quicumque Petit Mondo Pia Limina Corde Hic Petit Aeterni Fulgida Regna Poly."
Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 149. In light of the transparently humanist
program of the tempiettia Christian chapel juxtaposed with "polytheistic" musesthe phrase
"Regna Poly" stands out, especially considering the soon-to-be-published Hypnerotomachia
poliphilo, a work dedicated to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro.
Note 12: "Bina Vides Parvo Discrimine Juncta Sacella Altera Pars Musis Altera Sacra Deo Est."
Rotondi, Ducal Palace of Urbino, 91. Compare with Luciano Cheles's translation: "Here you see the
two small temples divided by just a small space; one is dedicated to the Muses, the other to God."
Studiolo of Urbino, 13n21.
Note 13: Granted between 1471 and 1484, perhaps for the benefit or at the behest of Federico.
Note 15: "Accipite Spiritum Sanctum Et Quorum Remiseratis Peccata Remittuntor Eis." Pernis,
"Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 151.
Note 16: In the Inferno, Dante encounters Guido il Vecchio da Montefeltro (d. 1298) in the eighth
circle of Hell (canto 27). Although he had retired as a condottiere and joined the Franciscan Order in
1296, Guido gave false counsel to the Colonna during Pope Bonifacio VIII's (12951303) campaign
against the family. Guido had failed to repent his sins, preferring the pope's fraudulent absolution,
and was condemned to eternal damnation (see Renzetti, "Guido di Montefeltro e Bonifacio VIII"). As
an interesting aside, it was Bonifacio VIII who, on the occasion of the Jubilee of 1300, had
inaugurated the practice of granting indulgences to the dead. LeGoff, Medieval Imagination, 74. An

ancestral namesake of Ottaviano's was also condemned to the Inferno. The earlier Ubaldini, lodged in
the sixth circle of Hell (canto 10), had been a papal legate accused of heresy for sympathizing with
the Holy Roman Emperor and for Epicureanism. Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and Malatesta, 5.
Note 17: A full description of Federico's charitable support and religious observances is available in
Vespasiano's Memoirs.
Note 18: Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 126. Works of St. Bernardino in the
ducal library: U.L. 1124. (1) Albizeschi s. Bernardini (in ms. Bernardini senensis) tractatus de
contractibus et usuris seu sermones quadragesimales de evangelio aeterno; and (3) Albizeschi s.
Bernardini sermones quadragesimales de christiana religione. Bound with (2) Periili Io. Angeli; (4)
Francisci de Platea; and (5) Ioannis Andreae.
Note 19: QUISQUIS ADES LAETUS MUSIS ET CANDIDUS ADSIS FACUNDUS CITHARAE NIL
NISI CANDOR INEST. See Maria Pernis's analysis of this inscription and the term "Candidus" in
"Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 25667.
Note 20: The panels of Minerva and the muses Euterpe and Urania have disappeared. For
iconographic analysis of the muses in both the Urbino and Gubbio studioli, see Cheles, Studiolo of
Urbino, 68.
Note 21: Maria Pernis provides a careful analysis of the tempietti in "Ficino's Platonism and the
Court of Urbino," chap. 6 and conclusion.
Note 22: "A sacculus would be something rather larger than a purse, and was used sometimes to
carry books as well as coinsvery precious things, useful for nourishing memories." Carruthers, Book
of Memory, 39. Sacella appears to be a hybrid of sacculus with cella, which is derived from the
image of a beehive, a lasting metaphor for storing wisdom away like honey. For discussion of these
related terms, see Carruthers, Book of Memory, chap. 1, "Models for the Memory," esp. 3345.
Note 23: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 13. Iris Origo has described this reconciliation as the
"harmonious blending of the ideals of Humanism and of Christianity." "Education of Renaissance
Man," 60.
Note 24: Three copies of the City of God were present in the ducal library.
Note 25: From Vespasiano's accounts it is unclear if, or at what point Federico would have eaten
breakfast. Although there is no account of meal before afternoon "repast," it is possible that the duke
would have taken some form of light colazione to fuel the early stages of his day. Publicius
recommends six raisins and six juniper berries after rising, and "a timely lunch without breakfast."
Art of Memory, 29.
Note 26: Thornton, Scholar in His Study, 2751. A 17th-century plan of the ducal palace at Gubbio
lists its studiolo as "Gabinetto."
Note 27: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 23. Federico possessed two copies of Petrarch's De vita
solitaria, one of which (Urb. Lat. 377) he had inherited from his grandfather, Antonio da Montefeltro
(13481404). Not one of the studies mentioned has survived.
Note 28: Including a fresco executed by Altachiero (ca. 1400) in the palace of Francesco il Vecchio
da Carrara in Padua (see Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, fig. 90) and illuminations from manuscripts of
Petrarch's works, such as the De viris illustribus. See also Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:fig. 583.
Note 29: Baxandall, "Guarino, Pisanello and Manuel Chrysoloras," 196. Also Cheles, Studiolo of
Urbino, 36. Leonello d'Este's study (144853) at his castle at Belfiore incorporated intarsia work
created for the "first recorded studiolo" (ca. 1414), which belonged to Paolo Guinigi, the lord of Lucca.
Included in the contents of the d'Este study was a portrait of St. Jerome in the wilderness,
commissioned from Piero della Francesca in 1449. The studiolo at Belfiore was the likely site of the
(unsuccessful) reconciliatory meeting between Federico and Sigismondo Malatesta, arranged by Borso
d'Este in 1457. For the demise of this studiolo in the War of Ferrara (148284), see Wilmering,
Gubbio Studiolo, 2:138.

Note 30: Epistolae, 2.7.8: "Parieti eius cubiculi mei in bibliothecae speciem armarium insertum est
quod non legendos libros sed letitandos capit" (My cubiculum has a press let into the wall that does
duty as a library, and holds books not merely to be read, but read over and over again). I.V. #464.
Note 31: I.V. #293. Alberti, Art of Building, 5.17.149. The influence of Pliny's Natural History was
deep. It is cited frequently in Alberti's De pictura and would be translated into Italian by Alberti's
protg, Cristofero Landino (see Grayson's translation of De pictura, 98n12). Bartolomeo Platina also
composed an Epitome of Pliny's Natural History in 1463 while employed (with Alberti) as a member
of the College of Abbreviators.
Note 32: Baldi makes this claim, Della vita e de' fatti, 3:5556. Rykwert describes a manuscript
finished in 1483 "for the very recondite bibliophile Federico da Montefeltro." Alberti, Art of Building,
xviii.
Note 33: Like Federico, Alberti was an illegitimate child. As a result, he was deprived of his
inheritance and had throughout his life to strike a balance between intellectual and economic
pursuits. See Kemp, "Introduction," 3.
Note 34: On the advantages and disadvantages of scholarship, 1428. Kemp, "Introduction," 3.
Note 35: Urb. Lat. #229. This manuscript belonged to Ottaviano degli Ubaldini. When the library
was recataloged toward the end of the 15th century, Alberti's manuscript was placed alongside
Aegidius Romanus's De regimine principe, Thomas Aquinas's Physiognomia, and Gregory the Great's
Moralia in Job.
Note 37: The conversation took place while Federico and a troop of cavalry escorted the pope to a
summer retreat in Tivoli. Garin, Prosatori latini, 67476. Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:23.
Note 38: I.V. #294, 607. Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and Malatesta, 80. For more on the
Barrocci family and their impact on Urbino, see Vetrano, ed., La scienza del ducato di Urbino.
Note 39: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 10n3.
Note 40: Concerning the construction of fortresses, Machiavelli cautions: "Fortresses may or may
not be useful according to the times; if they do good in one way, they do harm in another. The
question may be discussed thus: a prince who fears his own people more than foreigners ought to
build fortresses, but he who has greater fear of foreigners than of his own people ought to do without
them. The castle of Milan built by Francesco Sforza has given and will give more trouble to the house
of Sforza than any other disorder in that state. Therefore the best fortress is to be found in the love of
the people, for although you may have fortresses they will not save you if you are hated by the
people. When once the people have taken arms against you, there will never be lacking foreigners to
assist them." The Prince, 119.
Note 41: Similar to its English counterpart "House," an Italian "Casa" signified both a historical
family and its physical dwelling (e.g., "House of Usher").
Note 42: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 264. It is interesting that "true courage" was identified
with being freed from, rather than compelled by, one's passions.
Note 43: "Ich kahn verdant ein grose Eisen." Olga Raggio attributes this emblem to Federico's
grandfather (Gubbio Studiolo, 1:15), while Luciano Cheles attributes it to Federico's father,
Guidantonio (Studiolo of Urbino, 7879). See also Dorothy Miner, "Ovum Struthionis." This work
was executed between July 1472 and autumn 1474.
Note 44: Olga Raggio has identified this type of grenade as a petard, an explosive device mounted to
vertical surfaces (doors and walls) to cause a breach. Gubbio Studiolo, 1:114.
Note 46: Sigismondo dei Conti, La storie de' suoi tempi, 3:124, as cited in Tommasoli, La vita di
Federico da Montefeltro, 348n142.

Note 47: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 84. In a book borrowed from Duke
Guidobaldo, the poet Poliziano composed a Greek epigram praising the lender as the worthy son of a
father who never suffered defeat, anikitoio patros gonou. Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 325n27.
Note 48: An artistic rendering of such negotiations is found in Andrea Mantegna's Camera degli
Sposi at the ducal palace of the Gonzaga in Mantova.
Note 49: The Italian word for pen, penna, originates from feather. A condottiere would have had
another source of familiarity with penne, as the stabilizing components of the archer's arrow.
Note 51: "Disputatione Camaldulenses," in Garin, Prosatori latini, 762, 764. It is fitting that Alberti
would discuss Hercules: his knowledge of Vitruvius would include the episode in the introduction of
book 2, when the architect Dinocrates, dressed as Hercules, presents a model of an ideal city to
Alexander the Great, who retains his services to design the city of Alexandria. See Cheles, Studiolo of
Urbino, fig. 109. The image of Hercules fighting the Nemean lion is also found in the Door of the
Virtues.
Note 52: Starn, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 74. A pavis is a medieval shield of the sort made in Pavia.
Note 53: I.V. #465 (fol. 64v).
Note 54: Cheles identifies the basket of fruit with Giotto's image of Charity in the Scrovegni Chapel
(painted ca. 1306) in Padova. Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 82, figs. 100, 101.
Note 55: Grenade and pomegranate (the Italian equivalent is melagranata) both emerge from the
Latin granatus, filled with seeds. Pomegranates are found in abundance in the studiolo; at the base
of the pilasters (unripened) and in the brocade covering for the bench seat adjacent to the studiolo-
within-a-studiolo. In this textile pattern the pomegranates commingle with a curious seven-lobed
figure. Virginia Tenzer notes: "The pomegranate pattern dominated textile design in Italy between
1420 and 1550 "Iconography," 302n43. Pomegranates are found also in the Door of the Virtues.
Note 57: "I think princes ought to lead both the two lives [active and contemplative], but more
especially the contemplative life, because in their case this is divided into two parts: one of which
consists in perceiving rightly and in judging; the other in commanding (justly and in those ways that
are fitting) . . . and of this Duke Federico spoke when he said that whoever knows how to command is
always obeyed. And as command is always the chief office of princes, they ought often to see with
their own eyes and be present at the execution of their commands, and ought also sometimes to take
part themselves, according to the time and need; and all this partakes of action: but the aim of the
active life ought to be the contemplative, as peace is that of war, repose that of toil." Castiglione,
Book of the Courtier, 261. These comments echo the sentiments of Aristotle in Politics, 8.3.1337b33.
Note 58: This matter occupies chapter 14 of Machiavelli's The Prince.
Note 61: "Mars ferus et summum tangens cytherea tonantem dant tibi regna pares et tua fata
movent." See Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 72n77, and Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:26, figs. 33, 34.
Cytherea was an island near the point where Venus emerged from the ocean.
Note 62: De liberorum educatione. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, I.V. #47984, p. CXLIX, n. 42.
Schevill, First Century of Italian Humanism, 77. Also Woodward, Vittorino da Feltre, 136.
Note 63: "Nolo te Scipionem, sed Alexandrum, respondit; fuit enim, ut tu, principis filius, et ipse
princeps clarissimus." Excerpt from the biography of Vittorino da Feltre, commissioned by Federico
from his classmate Francesco Prendilacqua. I.V. #418. See Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 74n85.
Note 64: Plato, The Republic, 7.525b.

Note 65: James Dennistoun has noted: "The d'Este of Ferrara, the Sforza of Pesaro, but above all,
Duke Federigo Federico of Urbino, improving upon [Sigismondo Malatesta's] example, had shown
how mental cultivation might be brought to modify, or, as the Latin idiom has it, to humanise,
without ennervating, a martial character." Memoirs of Dukes of Urbino, 2:43.
Note 66: "[Federico] sent to Flanders and brought thence a master [Justus von Ghent] who did at
Urbino many very stately pictures, especially in Federigo's study." Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian
Memoirs, 101. The Memoirsin which we find Federico's biography among a short list of popes and
rulersis itself a verbal gallery of illustrious men of the quattrocento, including biographies for
Cardinal Bessarion, Vittorino da Feltre, Nicholas of Cusa, San Bernardino, and others of Federico's
circle.
Note 67: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 35. There are two main branches of this tradition: one chivalric,
celebrating men of arms, and the other glorifying intellectual and moral worth, such as Altichiero's
portrait of Petrarch in the cycle of frescoes at the palace of Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara in Padua.
The chivalric tradition is exemplified by the cycles of Taddeo di Bartolo and Andrea Castagna,
previously mentioned, and the Sala degli Affreschi of the Urbino palace, attributed to Giovanni
Boccati. In the quattrocento, imitation (equaling) did not signify "copying," as it does now. While
Machiavelli and Castiglione suggest a modest approach to achieving greatness (with respect to one's
heroic predecessors), Platina baldly states that his contemporaries might supersede (emulate) the
achievements of the ancients in all matters.
Note 70: Cecil H. Clough ("Art as Power," 2342) offered an arrangement of the illustrious men by
which he claimed to resolve inconsistencies of lighting in east and west wall portraits (see also
Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 19n16). Clough also used updated measurements to relaunch an argument
that included double portrait of Federico with Guidobaldo top and center in the east wall,
surmounting Piero della Francesca's Flagellation. Though Clough's rationale is interesting, Cheles's
previous critique holds (Studiolo of Urbino, 1521): a link between the portrait of Federico
mentioned by Vespasiano and the double portrait is doubtful. Most likely, Vespasiano's comment
refers to the portrait of Federico in the robes of a humanist, in the intarsia below. There is a more
problematic sticking point for Clough's argument, however. Although he joins almost all other
scholars in supporting Laurent Schrader's account of the portraits' sequential arrangementfrom
1592, the earliest such report before their disassembly in 1631Clough's reconstruction places Plato
and Petrarch at the center of the south wall. This location is decidedly not prominent, providing no
logical reason for Schrader to have produced a list that began with Plato and ended with Petrarch. In
contrast, Pasquale Rotondi's scheme of placing Plato at the west end of the north wallthe scheme
that is generally accepted and in situremains most satisfying while in keeping with Schrader's note.
Plato's position directly below the beginning of the dedicatory text, together with his immediate
visibility from the visitors' entrance, at which he gazes, makes it an obvious "starting point." Until
proven otherwise, compositional inconsistencies hold less gravity here than historical documentation.
For my part, I have puzzled over inconsistencies in architectural features in the portraitswhy, for
example, are Albertus, Sixtus IV, Dante, and Petrarch given wood-beamed ceilings when all other
ceilings in the bottom register portraits are masonry, and wood beams are consistent in the top
register?and considered alternative arrangements unhinged from the accepted sequence.
Unfortunately, while these afford tantalizing adjacencies with features in the intarsia, they resolve
manybut never allof the inconsistencies. For the time being, then, speculation is trumped by the
historical evidence of Schrader's list, and Rotondi's arrangement remains the most plausible.
Note 71: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 4445. "Plato/Aristotle, Ptolemy, Cicero, Homer/Virgil, Euclid,
Solon and Hippocrates are so incontrovertibly authoritative that they can all act as exemplars, the
perfect embodiment of their individual disciplines: Logic, Astronomy, Rhetoric, Poetry, Geometry,

Law and Medicine, respectively." Cheles has treated the organization and breakdown of the uomini
illustri extensively (3552). For the list of encomia written on each portrait, see Cheles, appendix A,
9395.
Note 72: There are four exceptions. The east wall includes Moses and Solomon (whose wisdom
nonetheless represents the foundations of the Church). The west wall includes the ur-humanists
Dante and Petrarch. The distinction between the top and bottom registers of the uomini illustri is
akin to the wall between the tempietti.
Note 73: The friction centered on the preeminence of Duns Scotus or Thomas Aquinas.
Note 75: In 1475, Urbino hosted a convocation of the Franciscan Order, an event that Maria Pernis
suggests influenced certain architectural decisions concerning the ducal palace. "Ficino's Platonism
and the Court of Urbino," 13646.
Note 76: Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, 159. Cardinal Bessarion owned the
Catena aurea of Aquinas (B78687) and six works of Ioannes Duns Scotus (B460, 706, 781, 785, 793,
903). See catalog B of Labowsky, Bessarion's Library.
Note 78: Citing Seneca's treatise on On the Tranquillity of Mind (I.V. #236), Virginia Tenzer notes
that the inclusion of these figures on the east wall strengthens the narrative of the vita activa/vita
contemplativa. "Iconography," 271.
Note 79: Aristotle, Politics, 2.12.1273b27.
Note 80: Pietro d'Abano (12531316), to whom Ficino frequently refers, taught at the University of
Padua. In his treatise on a proper humanist education (1450), Pope Nicholas V (then Tommaso da
Sarzana) writes that d'Abano's astrological works were appropriate for every library, even though the
physician had been considered a heretic and his bones were burned as a result of his interest in the
occult and refutation of the existence of the devil. Influenced by Averroes, his most important work
is the Conciliator differentiarum, which reconciled the Arab and Greek schools of medicine. I.V.
#CLVI, n. 15. Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 45. Also Tenzer, "Iconography," 255.
Note 81: Here, the Montefeltro leanings might slightly favor Medicine and Astrology, as Leonardo
Bruni had composed a treatise (1405) on the proper humanist education for a sister of Count
Guidantonio da Montefeltro. Coluccio Salutati, De nobilitate legum et medicinae. De verecundia. I.V.
#252, 489. Poggio Bracciolini, Historica tripartita, I.V. #397, 401, 476, 477, 608, 615, p. CXLIX, n.
52, p. CLVI, n. 31. See Tenzer, "Iconography," 282.
Note 82: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 41. "Pollici proximus digitus mediumque, qua dexter est,
unguem pollicis summo suo iungens, remissis ceteris, est et approbantibus et narrantibus et
distinguentibus decorus." Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 12.3.101, 4:296. Quintilian's entries in the
ducal library are I.V. #458, 459, p. CXLVII, n. 29.
Note 83: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 42. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 11.3.100, 4:296.
Note 84: Likely, there are additional clues in the specificity of these gestures. It might be valuable,
for example, to compare the hand gestures of the Franciscan Duns Scotus with tables on the finger
symbolism of numbers, the first of their kind, compiled by the Franciscan Luca Pacioli in his Suma
de arithmetica geometria proportioni and proportionalita. The tables are located on page 39 of the
treatise, verso. Boethius's gesture might be interpreted as arithmetic counting; however, since his
presence points also to the discipline of music, the gesture might allude to the mnemonic finger
notation devised by Guido d'Arezzo (ca. 9901050) for solmization.
Note 85: Alberti, De pictura (tr. Grayson), 2.41.76 (see also Kemp's editorial notes 45, 99.) Cicero De
amicitia 14.50.

Note 87: Origo, "Education of Renaissance Man," 68.

Note 88: Montefeltro had commissioned Donato Acciaiuoli, a premier Aristotelian scholar who
corresponded with Ficino, to compose a commentary.
Note 91: Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, 1.33.
Note 92: Carruthers, Book of Memory, 166: "The monastic custom of reading during meals is
described in some texts as an explicit literalizing of the metaphor of consuming a book as one
consumes food."
Note 93: Petrarch, Secretum, dialogue 2; Draper's translation with alterations from Carruthers
(Book of Memory, 163). See also Clark, Care of Books, 291318.
Note 94: Pietro Bembo visited Urbino for a few days to use its famed library and remained for six
years. A colleague of Castiglione's, Bembo was a central character in the Book of the Courtier, helping
in its final revisions. Later in life he was appointed the first official librarian of the Biblioteca San
Marcia, from 1530 to 1539, and led the Ciceronians in debates with Erasmus concerning stylistic
imitation. See Scott, Controversies over the Imitation of Cicero.
Note 95: See Castiglione's discussion of a prince's privacy in Book of the Courtier, 93.
Note 97: "Strepitus . . . means 'loud noise, confusion, rumbling,' and other sorts of disordered,
unconcentrated, 'busy' noise, the interruption that daily congress creates." Carruthers, Book of
Memory, 171.
Note 99: "Cogitatio semper vago motu de uno ad aliud transit." Richard of St. Victor, I.V. #87. See
Summers, Judgment of Sense, 202. Also: Hugh of St. Victor recalls Augustine's classification of
rational vision into cogitatio, meditatio, and contemplatio: "cogitatio is bound to particular things,
either to sensations or memories."
Note 101: Augustine, De trinitate, 16.6.8 (I.V. #39); Summers, Judgment of Sense, 202: "It is only
through cogitation that the mind can be brought under its own gaze."
Note 102: See Carruthers, Book of Memory, 173: "Without...emotional concentration, memory fails."
Also: "Even in moments of stress the counsel of experience will constrain a turbulent and willful
mind" (180).
Note 108: Alberti, Art of Building, 5.3.121. From Seneca De beneficiis 6.34.2 (I.V. #236).
Note 109: I.V. #447.
Note 110: Cicero De oratore 2.86.
Note 111: "(In porticu) a structure that provides the intercolumnia [intercolumnar loci] often
recommended as backgrounds for memory work." Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 177.
Note 112: Cicero, De oratore, 3.5.17.

Note 113: Vitruvius, De architectura, 6.4.1. Vitruvius should not be taken too literally: just as his
measurements and proportions often did not correspond with the actual structures, his rules of
proper orientation seem to reflect his ideal, rather than actuality. The cubiculum from the villa of
Fannius Synestor faced north.
Note 114: Epistolae, 2.7.8: "Parieti eius cubiculi mei in bibliothec speciem armarium insertum est
quod non legendos libros sed letitandos capit."
Note 115: Veyne, History of Private Life, 37879.
Note 116: As conveyed through Pliny the Younger, Natural History, 9.35. (I.V. #353).
Note 119: The Romans adopted this posture from the Greeks. Lectron, a couch, a bed, a support for
books. See also Plato's Symposium, 115n2.
Note 120: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 132. The lettiera was a standard form of bed during the
15th century.
Note 121: "Una tavola nel mezzo": Baldi, cited by Stornajolo, Biblioteca Vaticana, xiv, I.G. It is
doubtful that the table would have been placed in the exact center of the studiolo, which would have
blocked the perspectival standpoint from use.
Note 122: Wilmering, Gubbio Studiolo, 2:156.
Note 123: Epistolae, 2.7.8: "My cubiculum has a press let into the wall which does duty as a library,
and holds books not merely to be read, but read over and over again."
Note 125: I thank Giancarlo Ascani for recounting this episode. Olga Raggio states that the intarsia
has never been disassembled except for cleaning and maintenance.
Note 126: Including such items as the inkwells and glasses represented in the intarsia at Urbino and
Gubbio. See Tenzer, "Iconography," 208.
Note 127: Thornton, Scholar in His Study, 121.
Note 128: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 96. Closet, literally translated from
gabinetto, falls under the rubric of terms synonymous with studiolo.
Note 129: As an example of how frequently (and abruptly) the tides of alliances changed at this time,
Roberto Malatesta, Federico's son-in-law whom the duke had protected from Pope Paul in the Battle
of Rimini of 1469, was now in charge of the papal forces: Roberto and Federico would die on the
same day, 10 September 1482. It was rumored that Roberto was poisoned by Sixtus IV's nephew,
Girolamo Riario, who desired to assume command of Rimini. See editor's note, Vespasian Memoirs,
9899.
Note 130: Vespasiano describes the offer as 100,000 ducats in war and 60,000 in peace. Federico
was employed by the king of Naples for 32 years.
Note 132: This trope exemplifies the progymnasmata exercise of chreia.
Note 136: Machiavelli, The Prince, 89: "A prince who is ignorant of military matters . . . cannot be
esteemed by his soldiers, nor have confidence in them."

Note 138: Machiavelli, The Prince, 84. The Prince offers insight into the political machinations in
Italy during the latter half of the quattrocento. Owing to the rise in its temporal powers, the Church
had become increasingly dependent on external military forces to defend (if not increase) the bounds
of its rule.
Note 142: Merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious. Yet soon after, Machiavelli adds, "It must be
understood that a prince, and especially a new prince, cannot observe all those things which are
considered good in men, being often obliged, in order to maintain the state, to act against faith,
against charity, against humanity, and against religion." The Prince, 102.
Note 144: Cicero, De inventione, 2.53.160.
Note 145: "After he had heard the Ethics many times, comprehending them so thoroughly that his
teachers found him hard to cope with in disputation, he studied the Politics assiduously." Vespasiano
da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 99.
Note 148: See Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and Malatesta, 2933. Within a week of sending this
letter, Federico seized advantage of the poor relations Sigismondo kept with his own family by
arranging for the marriage of Malatesta's cousin, Costanza Varano da Camerino, and Alessandro
Sforza, who subsequently governed the coastal city of Pesaro. In one stroke, this marriage
strengthened Federico's alliance with the Sforza in Pesaro and Milan, and gave Urbino direct access
to the sea, cutting the lands of the Malatesta in half. In 1460, these alliances were reinforced when
Duke Francesco Sforza arranged the marriage between Federico and Battista Sforza, daughter of
Alessandro and Costanza Sforza.
Note 149: Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 223: "Princely virt, rehearsed and extolled ad
nauseum in the courtly literature and in dedications of books to patrons."
Note 150: For the Council of Basel in 1433, Nicholas of Cusa offered a proposal for harmonizing the
Church and empire, the De concordantia catholica. However, Pope Eugenius dissolved the council by
1437, and the matter remained unresolved at Cusa's death in 1464. Nonetheless, the council offered
an opportunity for Cusa to work with Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II, with whom
he would collaborate on the reunification of the Byzantine and Roman churches. In 1437, Cusa was
sent to Constantinople as an ambassador for the Holy See. Along with his colleague Cardinal
Bessarion, Cusa collected Greek manuscripts (which were otherwise vanishing with the Byzantine
Empire) and served as a vital bridge between Greek and Latin thought.
Note 151: See Rykwert, "Glossary," in Alberti, Art of Building, 426.
Note 152: For example, Castiglione writes: "I did not say that temperance wholly removes and
uproots the passions from the human mind, nor would it be well to do this, for even the passions
contain some elements of good; but [temperance] reduces to the sway of reason that which is
perverse in our passions and recusant to right." Book of the Courtier, 254.
Note 153: The cardinal virtues were traditionally connected to the practical wisdom of politics and
action. "Chroniclers, biographers and panegyrists tended to associate their heroes especially with the
cardinal virtues, rather than the otherspossibly because the Theological ones were so essential that
they could be taken for granted." Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 67.
Note 154: Although Luciano Cheles describes the studiolo as "imaginative," he concludes that its
subject matter is "a banal one (like that of most contemporary panegyrics)." Studiolo of Urbino, 91.

Note 155: As an example of virtues in concert, we read in Machiavelli that the prince "must be
cautious in believing and acting . . . and must proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and
humanity, so that too much confidence does not render him incautious, and too much diffidence does
not render him intolerant." The Prince, 97.
Note 157: "Stat sua cuiquedies; breve et inreparabile tempus / omnibus est vitae; sed famam
extendere factis, / Hoc virtutis opus." Aeneid, 202.
Note 158: Virgil, Aeneid, 156.
Note 161: "For all the ferocity of their inter-state squabbles, this was in a sense a rivalry of siblings.
When faced with foreigners from across the Alps, from Iberia or the countries of Islam, they were
always conscious of being different. Theirs was a common culture springing from a shared
inheritance that went back, it so clearly seemed, to a heroic age when the united Italy of classical
antiquity had ruled a vast empire." Thornton, Italian Renaissance Interior, 18.
Note 162: The Venetians, who had lost much of their holdings overseas to the Ottomans, began to
regard the terra firma with increasing interest. This became a new factor in the old sibling rivalries of
the Italic powers. Meanwhile, the Turks would continue to press toward Italy; in 1480, they landed on
Italian soil, subduing the southern seaport of Otranto.
Note 163: Regarding the dubious conduct of condottiere, see chapter 12 of Machiavelli's The Prince.
Note 164: The Council of Mantova (145960), hosted by Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga, Federico's
childhood classmate at Vittorino da Feltre's Ca' Zoiosa, served as a platform for Pius II to organize
the Italian states for a new crusade against the Turks. At the council, Federico was elected captain of
the league.
Note 165: See Milham's introduction to Platina, On Right Pleasure.
Note 166: I.V. #229.
Note 167: Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, 159. The debate over the primacy of
Aristotle or Plato had been taken up by Bessarion's teacher, the arch-Platonist Gemisthus Plethon,
and the Aristotelian Scholarios. It is interesting that George Trapezuntius (known also as Trivisanus
and Trebisond) had taken a position contrary to Plethon and Bessarion's circle of familiares, since he
had once belonged to it. Like Bessarion, Trapezuntius took active part in the exiled Greek community
in Venice, being its first priest. Labowsky, Bessarion's Library, 52. Trapezuntius's polemical work,
Comparationes philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis, was written in 1455, three years after Plethon's
death. As Paul Kristeller describes: "This work was much more violent than that of Scholarios in its
doctrinal and personal attacks against Plethon and Plato himself, and it defended the superiority of
Aristotle over Plato on all points, especially his agreement with Christian theology. This attitude of
Trapezuntius is rather strange when we consider his life and training." Renaissance Thought and Its
Sources, 158. Trapezuntius, like Bessarion, was of Byzantine origins (Crete) and, like Federico da
Montefeltro, had attended Vittorino da Feltre's Ca' Zoiosa.
Note 168: Pius II died in Ancona, waiting in vain for the forces to support this crusade.
Note 169: Regiomontanus also became friends with Alberti. His works in the ducal library are I.V.
#280 and p. CLII, n. 6.
Note 170: Curious note: a volume in the Urbino library (I.V. #285), containing Euclid's Optics,
Ptolemy's De iis qui in coelo aspiciuntor, and Mahomet's De algebra et almuchabala, was copied by
Michele Foresio for a certain Francesco da Borgo Sansepolcro, on 24 October 1458. In the dedications
to the Suma de arithmetica, Luca Pacioli refers to Pietro degli Franceschi de Borgo san Sepolcro. In
the ducal library's Indice Vecchio, there is an entry for Petrus burgensis pictor (I.V. #286), a treatise
on the Five Regular Bodies. It appears likely that the figure for whom Bessarion's manuscripts of

Euclid (#XI, 6[1142]), and Ptolemy (#377 [895]) were copied was Piero della Francesca, who was then
in Rome at the time. It is likely that a manuscript of Archimedes' works (I.V. #287), copied by
Jacobus Cremonensis in Rome in 1458, also belonged to Piero.
Note 171: Buonconte (144158) and Antonio (14501500) were both born out of wedlock, and
legitimized by papal bull. Federico's first marriage, to Gentile Brancaleoni (d. 1457), produced no
heirs. Buonconte, who was dear to Federico, was a promising soldier-scholar in the cast of his father.
Antonio, also a well-educated soldier, married Emilia Pia in 1487. Guidobaldo (14721508), the
legitimate heir to the dukedom, was born months before Bessarion died in Ravenna, en route to
France.
Note 172: Bessarion baptised Antonio in 1450, the year he met Federico, and later gave him the
manuscript of Homer. MS Urbino graec. 137. Homer, Ilias. Zorzi, Bessarione e l'umanesimo, 2.
Note 173: By this victory, the Medici maintained control over the supply of alum, an ingredient vital
for fixing colours in wool.
Note 174: I.V. #10.
Note 175: One of the stipulations of his contract as captain of the Italic League was overriding
loyalty to the Papal States, as knight of the pope.
Note 176: When the attackers were captured and promptly executed, the pope excommunicated
Lorenzo, and together with Naples, the Papal States declared war on Florence, effectively dissolving
the Italic League. See Lee, "Assassination Solved." If Federico was indeed behind the coup attempt,
as the letter suggests, he had (consciously or not) undermined the allegiance he himself led.
Moreover, Ficino's 1482 dedication of "a fide regia fideregum" would be laden with irony, intentional
or not.
Note 177: Chapter 3 of Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino."
Note 179: Following his excommunication, Malatesta was employed by Venice to fight in Greece.
While in Mistras, Sigismondo exhumed Pletho's remains, transported them to Rimini, and interred
them in a sarcophagus ensconced in the southwest wall of the Tempio Matatestiano.
Note 180: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2.6 (I.V. #2058).
Note 181: Plato, Symposium, 115n3. Federico had been familiar with the Symposium through
Vittorino da Feltre, who taught with a compendium of Plato's dialogues at the Ca' Zoiosa. In 1482,
Marsilio Ficino dedicated his Convivium, a translation and commentary on the Symposium, to
Federico (I.V. #221). Castiglione's Book of the Courtier is indebted to Plato and Ficino, especially in
Pietro Bembo's soliloquy on love at the conclusion of Book IV.
Note 182: Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 60n24, 64. In Lorenzetti's "Virtues of Good Government,"
Temperance is shown holding an hourglass.
Note 183: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, stereometry is "the art or science of
measuring solids," whereas stereotomy is "the art of cutting stones or other solid bodies into
measured forms, as in masonry." "Pacioli believed that stereotomy, the careful 'geometrizing' of stone
through cutting and polishing, could transmute and spiritualize lowly matter, evoking St. John's
Heavenly Jersualem made of 'pure gold resembling pure glass.'" Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture,"
278.
Note 184: For Luca Pacioli, "all numbers are analogical and are related to higher truths; his aim was
never simply to engage in 'formal' geometrical manipulations." Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture,"
248.
Note 185: Nicholas of Cusa, De Visione Dei, preface, 3. "The ontological concept of proportion in
Pacioli's work . . . owes a greater debt to the tradition that extends from Plato himself to Nicholas of
Cusa's coincidentia oppositorum and Alberti's concinnitas" (Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture," 259).

Note 186: Carruthers, Book of Memory, 294n33. Note also Rykwert's observations on the regional
variability of "standard" measures in Italy during this period ("Measures: antique and modern,"
Alberti, Art of Building, 423).
Note 188: Plato, Symposium, 207b.
Note 189: "This body by which we are all sustained and live is composed . . . of four humors, for it
has in it blood, red bile, which we call choler, black bile, which we call melancholy, and phlegm,
which is called pituita in Latin. . . . The blood is increased from February 6 to May 8. . . . Choler rises
from May 8 to August 6. . . . Melancholy is dominant from August 6 to November 6 [at which point]
phlegm flourishes." Platina, On Right Pleasure, 1.10.13. For further discussion of this tradition see
Padel, In and Out of Mind; Onians, Origins of European Thought; and Barfield, History in English
Words.
Note 191: It is clear from Vitruvius's comments that these practices of architectural divination were
well established by Roman antiquity. Vitruvius, De architectura, 1.4.9. Alberti, Art of Building, 1.6.17.
For more on this subject, see Padel, In and Out of Mind; Illich, H2O; and Rykwert, Idea of a Town.
Note 192: "The Hippocratic school maintained that only by attentively observing and recording all
symptoms in great detail could one develop precise 'histories' of individual diseases; disease, in itself,
was out of reach." Ginzberg, Clues, 105.
Note 195: After his early morning exercise, a bath would certainly have been relaxing and/or
revitalizing for the duke's spirits. The water-powered machines, organs and musical fountains of
Ctsebius and Hero of Alexander are featured in book 10 of Vitruvius.
Note 196: Since Federico was born on 7 June, he was said to be of "choleric" temperament, the
humor of red bile seated in the heart and given to anger and strong emotions.
Note 197: Paltroni, Commentari, 54. Also Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:21.
Note 199: On Right Pleasure. A treatise that combined "Plinian lore with the recipes of Martino,
cook to Cardinal Trevisan, who kept the best table in Rome." Milham, introduction to Platina, On
Right Pleasure, xiii.
Note 200: Platina, On Right Pleasure, 5. Works of these authors are found in the ducal library, in
which treatises on diet, health, and agriculture follow treatises on military architecture and precede
Cicero's works on rhetoric. Cato I.V. #436; Varro I.V. #436, 437; Columella I.V. #438; Palladius
Rutilus I.V. #439, 440; Caelius Apicius I.V. #441, 442.
Note 201: The philosophical system of Epicurus, holding that the world is a series of fortuitous
combinations of atoms and that the highest good is pleasure. Platina legitimizes his research on
pleasure by emphasizing historical references that looked favorably on Epicurus. "As Aristotle makes
Plato, Pythagoras, Zeno, Democritus, Chrysippus, Parmenides and Heraclitus the basis and substance
of his learning and teaching, so does he use Epicurus," who is extolled with "wonderful praises as the
best and holiest of men" by Seneca, Lucretius, and Laertius. Defending Epicurus, Platina urges that it
is not "what the good man said that is blameworthy but what his corrupted followers added." On
Right Pleasure, 1.Intro.4.
Note 202: Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and Malatesta, Introduction, 15.
Note 203: Platina, On Right Pleasure, 1.Intro.3. Particularly notable for its caution against "excess"
is Platina's discourse on truffles.

Note 204: Platina, On Right Pleasure, 1.Intro.3.

Note 206: This work was included in Urbino's library (I.V. #620), paired with Platina's later
biography of Cardinal Bessarion.
Note 208: A confection, cake, candy, or crystallized fruit.
Note 209: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 109. Might this have included hard cider,
kirsch, or calvados? An editor's note points out that Federico supported the Jesuates, an "Order"
founded by S. Jan Colombin in 1367. According to Montaigne (Travels) the Jesuates "are not priests,
neither do they say mass nor preach, but they are skilful distillers of citron and other waters"
Note 211: Platina, On Right Pleasure, 1.9.12. For example, "A man of leisure should read aloud and,
after reading, walk a good deal."
Note 212: It would become even more so during Guidobaldo's reign. Evenings at his court were
filled with music and dancing in the Salon delle conversazione, as Castiglione details. Book of the
Courtier, 12. During the Montefeltros' exile to Venice from Urbino at the hands of Cesare Borgia
(15023), Isabella d'Este sent Marchetto Cara, a popular composer of ballads and madrigals who had
frequented Urbino, "to relieve the tedium of her friend and sister-in-law the Duchess Elisabetta."
Book of the Courtier, 341n95. The Capella di Musica was founded by Guidobaldo in 1506 and exists
today. Regarding the Salon delle conversazione: in describing the term salon, Alberti alludes to its
derivation (he believes) from saltare, to dance, "because that was where the gaiety of weddings and
banquets took place." Art of Building, 5.2.119. Joseph Rykwert (et al.) notes that the true origin of the
word is the German Saal. Art of Building, 383n9.
Note 214: This ancient tradition was fostered during the Middle Ages in the writings of Augustine,
Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Isidore of Seville. Cassiodorus (I.V.# 90, 391) writes: "The heavens and
the earth, indeed all things in them which are directed by a higher power, share in this discipline of
music, for Pythagoras attests that this universe was founded by and can be governed by music."
Levenson, Measure for Measure, 44.
Note 215: I.V. #CLVI p. 22, cross-referenced with U.L. #258. Ugolini urbevetani archipresbyteri
ferrariensis de musica libri, I-VI.
Note 218: Emanuel Winternitz comments: "On the formula of the harmonic proportions were based
the standards for the human body and for architecture as well as the musical scale, and as the most
recent pearl on this string, the theory of linear perspective." "Quattrocento Science," 109.
Note 219: Printed in Milan in 1492 and 1496, respectively.
Note 220: Levenson, Measure for Measure, 50.
Note 222: Lorenzo de' Medici also owned an organ made by Castelano. Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino,
8384.
Note 224: Levenson, Measure for Measure, 50.

Note 225: The 15th-century (Italian) treatise by Johannis Gallici, the Liber notabilis musicae,
includes an image of "the first stage of the conversion of the monochord into the clavichord." See
Montagu, Medieval and Renaissance Musical Instruments, fig. 42.
Note 226: Also known as the subject.
Note 227: The lyre was considered equivalent to both the lute and the harp.
Note 229: Plato, Timaeus, 47d.
Note 231: Ficino, Book of Life, 2.15.67. Also: "just as things most temperate in their quality, together
with aromatic things, at first temper the humors among themselves, and then temper the natural
spirit with itself, so also odors of this kind temper the vital spirit, and their harmonies, in turn,
temper the animal spirit. Thus, when you put your faith in the lyre and its sounds, the tones that are
tempered in your voice likewise temper your inner spirit." Book of Life, 2.15.68.
Note 233: Aristotle, Politics, 8.7. See editor's chapter introduction, p. 472; also Karvouni, "Demas."
Note 235: "Bella gerit musasque colit Federicus omnium maximus Italiorum Dux foris atque domi."
Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 56. Gerit appears to arrive etymologically from Greek gyrus, circle, and
Latin gyrare, whirl or swirl. Reference to "bella gerit" is found in Alciati's Emblemata liber. In
emblem 169, entitled, "One ought to fear even the tiniest creatures" (A minimis quoque timendum),
Alciati writes: "The beetle wages war and provokes his enemy of his own accord; even though inferior
in strength he surpasses her in cunning" (Bella gerit scarabeus, et hostem provocat ultro, Robore et
inferior, consilio superat).
Note 236: It might prove worthwhile to analyze the musical structure of "Bella gerit," since Josquin
des Prez soon after (1505) composed a work for Ercole d'Este that employed the technique of
soggetto cavato, by which the vowels of the duke's name were transposed into pitch material. From
Federico's reign through that of his son Guidobaldo, the courts of Urbino (Montefeltro) and Ferrara
(d'Este) were engaged in an open cultural exchange. Guidobaldo was in fact married to Elisabetta
Gonzaga, the sister of Isabella d'Este.
Note 237: Translation from Tenzer, "Iconography," 214.
Note 238: Aristotle Politics 7.15.1334a11: "For war forces men to be just and restrained, but the
enjoyment of prosperity, and leisure in peacetime, are apt rather to make them arrogant. For if it is a
mark of disgrace not to be able to use advantages, it is especially so in a period of leisureto display
good qualities when working or on military service, but in leisure and peace to be no better than
slaves."
Note 239: Aristotle, Politics, 8.5.1339a11. Compare with Castiglione: "There is to be found no rest
from toil or medicine for the troubled spirit more becoming and praiseworthy in time of leisure than
[music . . . which is] refreshing spiritual food." Book of the Courtier, 62.
Note 240: Plato, Timaeus, 47d.
Note 241: Tomlinson, Music in Renaissance Magic, 8489, 10144.
Note 242: The Book of Life. Book 1 is entitled De cura valetudinis eorum qui incumbunt studio
litterarum (On caring for the health of students). Book 2 is entitled De vita producenda (How to
prolong your life).

Note 246: Levenson, Measure for Measure, esp. the first two chapters. Also Grout, History of
Western Music, 201: "The clavichord was essentially a solo instrument for use in small rooms."
Note 247: Montagu, World of Medieval and Renaissance Musical Instruments, 118. At Gubbio, the
cittern is depicted alongside the architect's set square/level, the hourglass, and divider, and directly
beneath the term ingenioq, implying that one's natural talent(s) should be guided by discipline and
right pleasure.
Note 249: While Antoine Wilmering has suggested that the Federico might have a "sweet
tooth" (Gubbio Studiolo, 1:107), Vespasiano's description of the duke's diet suggests otherwise.
Rather than epicureanism the image of two spoons evokes conviviality.
Note 250: Lucianus, I.V. #255, p. CXLIX, n. 50; graec. 8992, 167. As Martin Kemp notes, Alberti
dedicated a collection of these stories to Paolo Toscanelli, "a doctor who was a leading student of
mathematics, astronomy and optics." "Introduction," 18.
Note 251: Luciano Cheles has pointed to the chessboard and "pawns" as examples "that the Urbino
studiolo was not meant for serious study only." Studiolo of Urbino, 86. See also Liebenwein, Studiolo,
n. 143, and Raggio, Gubbio Studiolo, 1:35.
Note 252: Platina, On Right Pleasure, 1.4.
Note 255: Tenzer, "Iconography," 209. See Lasker, How to Play Chess, 57: "Chess originated from
warfare. In olden times two armies opposed to each other took up their positions in nearly straight
lines, separated by a nearly level plane. A general, to make his plans clear to his officers, sketched the
position and indicated movements of bodies of men. In this way military games such as chess, were
generated. Possibly Hannibal before the battle of Cannae drew lines and placed stones of a board to
explain his intended strategy for that battle. . . . For the purpose of teaching strategy, the battlefield
was represented by the chessboard. It was given the shape of a square, divided into 64 squares,
usually colored White and Black alternately."
Note 257: Like barbarian, the term infidel is unavoidably subjective and reflexive: often it is used to
describe "others" that are beyond one's sphere of familiarity. Reciprocally, of course, one is being
evaluated as an "infidel" by unknown "others."
Note 258: Magee, Bonus Socius, 12.
Note 259: Compare with Tenzer, "Iconography," 209: "Chess was a game of the courts that
flourished from the 12th through the 15th centuries. It did not bear the onus of gambling, since it
depended upon skill of mind rather than 'the tricks of fortune.'"
Note 260: As Mary Milham has noted, these games represent Platina's discussion of movement and
rest, the third of six "nonnaturals" discussed in the "Six Necessities of Life" of the Arabic tradition.
"Platina used Arabic medicine in two ways: he accounted for the humoral properties of each
vegetable, fruit and type of meat in the manner of Ibn Butlan's tables" in addition to the "Six
Necessities." Introduction to Platina, On Right Pleasure, xix.
Note 261: The ladder to heaven reflects not only the biblical Jacobean narrative but also a
mnemonic image popularized by Raymond Lull. See Seznic, Survival of the Pagan Gods, 139.
Note 262: Vitruvius, De architectura, 5.Preface.4.
Note 263: See Hersey's discussion of Vitruvius's "sectioned cube," Pythagorean Palaces, 4350.
Also Saiber, "Giordano Bruno's Geometry of Language," 2122.
Note 264: Magee, Bonus Socius, 12.

Note 265: Magee, Bonus Socius, 12. Novello's portrait, by Vasari, is in the grand salon of the Palazzo
Vecchio in Florence.
Note 266: Magee, Bonus Socius, 64. Buonconte was mortally wounded in combat on 11 June 1289. A
woodcut in the March 1491 Venetian edition of the Divine Comedy depicts the condottiere recounting
his misfortune to Virgil and Dante. Federico named his first son Buonconte.
Note 267: It might be that the name Buzecca is a variation of cecco, which in modern Italian means
"blind."
Note 268: Magee, Bonus Socius, Prologue.
Note 270: Publicius, Art of Memory, 7. Frances Yates also comments: "In the 'Tree of Man' in the
Arbor scientiae, Lull analyses memory, intellect and will, ending the treatment of memory with the
words: 'And this treatise of memory which we give here could be used in an Ars memorativa which
could be made in accordance with what is said here.'" Art of Memory, 184.
Note 271: "Nello spiraglio dello sportello si intravede in alto una piccola tavola squadrata. Dovrebbe
trattarsi di una scacchiera, perche nella scansia inferiore, vicino a dei libri, sono sparsi alcuni pezzi
del gioco degli scacchi (si riconoscono una torre e un alfiere)" (Through the latticework of the cabinet
door one catches a glimpse of a small gridiron tablet. It must be that of a chessboard, because in the
shelf below, loosely scattered beside some books, are a few chess pieces [one recognizes a castle and a
bishop]). Bagatin, Le tarsie dello Studiolo d'Urbino, 7374.
Note 272: See Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. alphin.
Note 273: Santi, Cronaca rimata, 1.3. vv. 4960; cited by Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and
Malatesta, 114.
Note 274: Egidius Romanus, De regimine principium (I.V. #200, 248). Romanus, known also as
Guido Colonna and Gilles de Rome, was deeply influenced by Aquinas and the Dominicans but
remained an Augustinian. Romanus succeeded in reforming the Augustinian Order, which at their
general convocation in Florence in 1287 ruled that all teachings should conform to Romanus's strain
of Thomism.
Note 275: Caxton, Playe of the Chesse, 11. See also Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino,
1:223.
Note 276: Caxton, Playe of the Chesse, 9.
Note 277: "Perfectus medicus phisicus novit . . . armoniam pulsuum tamquam quandam armoniam
musice": as cited in Gallo, Music in the Castle, 60.
Note 278: Caxton, Playe of the Chesse, 119. Book 2 describes nobles; book 3 describes commoners
(pawns).
Note 279: Cessoles' allegories on chess allude to the political and religious transformations that
followed the destruction of the Temple of Solomon by King Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE and the
Jews' exile to Babylon. Psalm 136 recalls: "Beside the streams of Babylon we sat and wept at the
memory of Zion." Even before Nebuchadnezzar's son Evilmerodach eventually pardoned the Jews,
ending their exile, the vision of Ezekiel in 573 bce offered the blueprint for a new Israel by drawing
on the foundations of the nation's heart, the Temple of Solomon.
Note 281: Although ontologically removed from the quattrocento, genetic engineering represents a
recent essay into the hidden workings of the universe, reframing fundamental questions of
predestiny and free will.

Note 283: At Urbino, skills of literary and figurative encryption and decryption were exercised in
the "ingenious games" mentioned by Castiglione, "in which under various disguises the company
disclosed their thoughts figuratively to whom they liked best." Book of the Courtier, 12. As Mary
Carruthers observes, such allegorical games were made possible by a common figural language: "A
cento is a playful poem that is made up of a pastiche of half-lines and phrases from a canonical poet;
it cannot succeed except for an audience who know the original poet as intimately as does the
composer of the cento. It is a kind of puzzle poem. Ausonius [Urbino library, I.V. #498] likens the
cento to a Greek bone puzzle called ostomachia. The player struggles to fit the disparate shapes of
the bones together, and with skill, a delightful picture can be made, perhaps of an elephant or a
flying goose, a tower or a tankarda variety limited only by the ingenuity of the players. 'And while
the harmonious arrangement of the skillful is marvellous, the jumble made by the unskilled is
grotesque.'" Craft of Thought, 5759. In chapter 3 of The Gallery of Memory, Lina Bolzoni details
how these games became increasingly complex and commonplace during the cinquecento.
Note 284: For a collection of Ficino's examples, see Book of Life, 3.12.12325.
Note 286: Two copies of Ludovico Lazzarelli's De imaginibus gentilium deorum (On the images of
the gods of the gentiles) were present in the ducal library (Urb. Lat. #716, 717). In this treatise, whose
images were inspired by the carte di trionfi, Lazzarelli investigates the wisdom concealed in Greek
and Egyptian myths and Christianizes the gods of antiquity.
Note 287: Otherwise known as Flavius Mithridates, Guglielmo Raimondo de Moncada was a
converted Jewish scholar from Sicily who dedicated his Ali' de imaginibus coelestibus (Urb. Lat. 1384)
to Federico in 1481. According to Maria Pernis, this work is "of paramount importance in the history
of Cabala in Italy." "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 11. Comprised of three parts, the
treatise includes a work by Ibn al-Hatim on the talismans of the lunar mansions, another by
Mithridates on eclipse computations, and an excerpt from the Koran with Mithridates' Latin
translation and a glossary of Arabic terms. Among the ecliptic computations, Pernis has discerned
that Mithridates substituted the letters from Federico's name and his own ("Guyllelmus Raimondo de
Moncata") for numbers, demonstrating astrological applications of the kabbalah.
Note 288: A divinatory practice of letter combination and number mysticism that investigates
sacred mysteries, calculates the names of god, and foretells the future.
Note 289: The first copy of Ludovico Lazzarelli's treatise (Urb. Lat. #716) had been previously
dedicated to Borso d'Este, but these references were erased following the duke's death in 1471,
whereupon the manuscript was rededicated to Federico. Interestingly, the second manuscript at
Urbino was copied from the first but was modified at Montefeltro's request. As Maria Pernis notes,
Federico's version was further Christianized, with symbols of the four Evangelists inserted into the
miniature depicting the Prima Causa. Regarding Lazzarelli's influence, see Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism
and the Court of Urbino," 21622. It is also worth noting that Urbino hosted the 1475 convocation of
the Franciscan Order.
Note 290: While an envoy in Constantinople, Cusa had studied a translation of the Koran. Later, in
1461, at the request of Pius II, the cardinal composed the Cribratio alchoran, in which he
demonstrated the similarities and differences between Islam and Christianity.
Note 291: Heptaplus: or Discourse on the Seven Days of Creation represented an attempt to
reconcile biblical Genesis with Plato's Timaeus.
Note 292: Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture," 281.
Note 294: From the encomium at Urbino: "To Pietro of Abano, the most fair-minded judge of
physicians, on account of his distinguished study of the more recondite disciplines, Federico caused
this to be erected." Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 94.

Note 296: A "place apart," or "lonely place," reserved for speculative reflection: the "mirror of
princes."
Note 297: In the following century, through the writings of Sebastiano Serlio and fabrications of
Andrea Palladio and Vincenzo Scamozzi, the ideal city would be literalized as a civic setting for
theatrical performance.
Note 298: This topic gathered increased interest in subsequent centuries, as evidenced by the works
of Thomas More (Utopia), Tommaso Campanella (City of the Sun), and Francis Bacon (New
Atlantis).
Note 299: Prez-Gmez, "Villalpando's Divine Model," 12556. "King Philip II financed both the
Escorial [designed by Juan de Herrera] and Villalpando's project [a theoretical reconstruction of the
Temple of Solomon] to promote economic power as symbolic power, to legitimize colonial
exploitation, and to demonstrate his Solomonic wisdom. The king's new Catholic seat of government,
a college-monastery-palace-sanctuary, was conceived as a new embodiment of Solomon's Temple and
inaugurated a building type that was emulated in the following two centuries" (130).
Humanism, 76.
Note 301: Alberti's "centric ray."
Note 302: "The sciences and mathematical disciplines are abstract and it is never possible to make
them visible actualiter. The hand can never give form to a point, a line, or a [geometric] surface."
Divina proportione, cited by Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture," 274. In Luca Pacioli's view,
according to Alberto Prez-Gmez, "the aim of the architect/craftsman was not to render the ideal
world as a concrete physical presence; this would be an absurd impossibility." "Glass Architecture,"
278. Pacioli's mathematics were not "of this world" yet must be "grasped through the senses," a
conundrum (reminiscent of Cusa's coincidentia oppositorum) that evinces the spiritual dimensions of
Urbino's intarsiated ideal city. It is also worth mentioning that Pacioli's Divina proportione included
an image of the gateway to Solomon's Temple, after the visions of Ezekiel, whose numerology had
been examined by earlier Franciscans and such Jewish scholars as Maimonides. Prez-Gmez,
"Villalpando's Divine Model," 128. Several works in Hebrew attributed to Maimonides ("Moses
Maimones") were present in the ducal library (I.V. hebr. 1621, 48). It does not seem coincidental
that Solomon's portrait is located directly above the ideal city.
Note 303: To contemplate the heavenly Jerusalem, Augustine and Hugh of St. Victor withdrew in
meditation to the secret cubiculo/arca contained in their hearts.
Note 304: Plato, Timaeus, 42: "The composition and destiny of the human soul."
Note 305: Compare with Emanuel Winternitz: "Both art and science in the 'quattrocento' drew their
inspiration from one strong impulse: the tendency toward rationalization, sweeping through all
branches of natural science, aiming at calculation and control of nature by establishing its laws."
"Quattrocento Science," 122. Also Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 7677. "Rationalization," post-
Descartes, is quite different from the quattrocento sense of ratiocinatione.
Note 308: As Joseph Rykwert and Alberto Prez-Gmez observe, doubt was formally cast on
Alberti's concinnitas by Claude Perrault, whose archaeological and anatomical research demonstrated
"no close correspondence between musical and visual harmony as earlier theorists of both music and
of architecture implicitly believed." Rykwert, Dancing Column, 53; Prez-Gmez, Architecture and
the Crisis of Modern Science, 30 ff. Although Perrault published his findings in the late 17th century,
it was not until the end of the following century, with the physician Samuel Thomas Soemmering's
examination of fetuses, using a double velo, that human babies were represented as anything other
than perfectly proportioned Albertian beauties. See Duden, Disembodying Women, 4142.

Note 309: For Marsilio Ficino and Ramos de Pareia, the lute evoked cosmological significances that
were not limited to Greek and Christian traditions. An instrument of Persian origin, the lute ('ud)
offered a rebus of universal order that was adopted and adapted by Ficino and Ramos through the
ninth-century writings of Al-Kindi. See Tomlinson, Music in Renaissance Magic, 7982. Lina
Bolzoni suggested the association between the tuning key and the Franciscan tau during a visit to the
Gubbio studiolo in October 2000.
Note 310: Plato, Selections, 220; cited from Phaedo.
Note 311: Plato, Selections, 220; cited from Phaedo.
Note 312: In De pictura, Alberti stresses the influence of paintings on human memory: "Through
painting, the faces of the dead go on living for a very long time. We should also consider it a very
great gift to men that painting has represented the gods they worship, for painting has contributed
considerably to the piety which binds us to the gods, and to filling our minds with sound religious
beliefs." De pictura, 2.25.60. Lactantius, whose writings were strongly recommended by Leonardo
Bruni, urges that images preserve memories of the dead and absent like a "remedy." Summers,
Judgment of Sense, 149. His Firmiami was bound with Petrarch's De remedio utriusque Fortunae,
Augustine's City of God, Boethius's De consolatione, and Salomonis's Moralium (I.V. #58).
Note 313: Immortality of the soul was accepted as church doctrine in 1513, at the same Lateran
Council (precipitated by Paul of Middleburg) that saw the revision of the calendar. Stellar
reincarnation surfaces in "A Vision after the Battle of Compaldino," a tale recounted by Matteo
Palmieri in which Dante figures as a character. Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento
Florence, 16068. Works of Palmieri in the ducal library: I.V. #30, 205, 389, 419.
Note 316: According to Liane Lefaivre, gout was a disease with a strange tendency to afflict
humanists; its cause was not limited to a rich dietsymptoms could result as a byproduct of
poisoning. Lefaivre notes that this technique of murder was favored by the Borgia family, beginning
with Rodrigo Borgia, who in 1464 was appointed prefect by the antihumanist Pope Paul II after the
College of Abbreviators had been shut down. In August 1464, Nicholas of Cusa and Pope Pius II both
died with symptoms of podagra. Lefaivre, Leon Battista Alberti's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, 1067.
At this time, Alberti visits Urbino and has his horoscope cast. One generation later, Rodrigo, now
Pope Alexander VI, covets Urbino for his son, Cesare. Is it possible that Guidobaldo's gout was
produced by a failed assassination attempt by Cesare Borgia? The favorite poison of the Borgia,
allegedly, was an arsenic-laced concoction named cantarella, which produced excruciating goutlike
symptoms in its unfortunate survivors, symptoms such as those Guidobaldo suffered.
Note 317: The fortress was lost by betrayal; Guidobaldo escaped in disguise as a peasant.
Note 318: Including the Flemish tapestries depicting the Trojan Wars.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Conclusion: The Studioli as Architecture

"Tutte le fortezze che nella mente occorrano continuamente, sarebbe un
processo in infinito." (All of the fortresses that continually occur to the mind
would proceed into infinity.)
Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Trattati
Fig. 7.1. Heptagonal fortress. Fig. 7.2. Heptagonal figure from

area of Urbino studiolo.
The history of the art of memory has been characterized as an evolving experiment in forming 1
associations between the visible and invisible.1 It is difficult to predict and control the
products of this experiment. As Horace observes, some results are comical and absurd, while
others provoke an observer to puzzle over their possible significance, allowing "more for the
mind to discover," Alberti suggests, "than is actually apparent to the eye."2 Complementary to
memory, architecture is an ongoing experiment that makes visible our evanescence, as quarry
for further dreaming and reflection. Although the exact appearance and contents of
mnemonic palaces and cities vanish irretrievably with their authors, we may discern the
following from the evidence available: at the moment of their physical completion, in the
presence of their patron, architect, scholarly consultants, and artisans, the Gubbio and Urbino
studioli embodied a deep history of ideas and practices of knowing, gathered and presented in
a highly innovative manner. It is precisely by their capacity to engage the observer to
speculate on the meanings of particular imagesas well as the potential meanings
constellated from clusters of imagesthat these chambers reveal their quintessence. The
studioli offer mnemonic engines within which each visitor figures as a participant-agent,
retrieving associations and forging them anew.

Architecture and Memory Chapter Seven Robert Kirkbride
Notes
Note 1: By Lina Bolzoni, at a fall 2000 seminar at New York University.

Note 2: Horace, Art of Poetry; Alberti, On Painting, trans. Grayson, 2.42.77.

Acknowledgments
My interest in the Montefeltro studioli was sparked on my first visit to Urbino, when I 1
wondered, Why is the lute-string broken? Twenty years later, I believe I can offer a
reasonable explanation. Along the way, I have benefited from the assistance of many
individuals and organizations. For insights on musical undercurrents in the studioli, her sonic
contributions and for brightening my skies I am grateful to Melissa Grey, to whom this work
is dedicated. To Dan Rose, the best man, for the tonic of his dry, dark wit and thoughtful
generosity; to my parents, Carole and Edward, and my grandparents, Mary Ellen and Austin
Hiller and Beatrice and Earle Kirkbride, without whom none of this would exist; and to Eva
Hedley. I am indebted to my dissertation adviser, Alberto Prez-Gmez, for his counsel, and
to the members of my committeeMary Carruthers, Ricardo Castro, and Annmarie Adams
for their critical encouragement and timely suggestions.
Friends graciously provided studioli in which to study the studioli: thanks to Anna Botta and 2
Jim Hicks, Dan and Martha Rose, and Claudia and Giuseppe Zambonini. For support and
fruitful suggestions at critical moments, I thank Hilary Ballon, Gerald Beasley, Mario Carpo,
Jean-Pierre Chupin, Jeffrey Cunard, Barbara Duden, Marco Frascari, Bilge Friedlaender,
Francis J. Grey, Nilly Harag, David King, Phyllis Lambert, J. D. McClatchy, Lisa Ronchi and
Orseolo Torossi, Chris Smeenk, Susan Stewart, Anne Tyng, Barry Ulanov, Anton Vowl, and
Dorian Wiszniewski. For their thoughts during visits to the Gubbio studiolo, my thanks to
Jennifer Bloomer, Lina Bolzoni, Annping Chin, Tim Clark, Angela Grauerholz, Harry
Mathews, and Jonathan Spence. For assistance in translations, I thank Anna Botta, Arielle
Saiber, and Alexander Ulanov, and for logistical support, Laura Jones Dooley, Helen Dyer,
Katherine Innes-Prevost, Marcia King, and Susie Spurdens.
For their assistance in envisioning the next stages of this project during a residence at the 3
Canadian Centre for Architecture, I am grateful to Martin Kemp, Alain Laforest, Dirk de
Meyer, Alexis Sornin, and the CCA's remarkable staff and volunteers, including Genevieve
Dalpe, Aliki Economides, and Megan Spriggs. To Executive Director Arnita Jones, and
Elizabeth Fairhead, I extend thanks for their support at the American Historical Association,
whose Gutenberg-e Prize made this exploratory iteration possible. For their tremendous work
to facilitate these explorations, to Kate Wittenberg and the E.P.I.C. staff of the Columbia
University Press, Nathaniel Herz, Merran Swartwood, Mark Reilly, Roberto Marte and
Columbia University's Digital Knowledge Ventures. For assistance at The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, I thank Doralynn Pines, Associate Director for Administration, and Julie
Zeftel, Museum Librarian of the Image Library.
For facilitating research at Urbino and Rome, I am grateful to The Bogliasco Foundation and 4
Centro Studi Ligure per le Arti e le Lettere (Genoa, Italy), its staff, and director, James
Harrison, and the following individuals at the Soprintendenza per il patrimonio storico
artistico ed etnoantropologico delle marche: Soprintendente Dr. Lorenza Onore, Dr. Agnese

Architecture and Memory Acknowledgments Robert Kirkbride
Vastano, Claudia Petraglia, and Giancarlo Ascani. Special gratitude to Dr. Giuliano Donini,
Secretary of the Accademia Raffaello, and Gian-Italo Bischi of the University of Urbino and
President of the Urbino Academy. I am also grateful to Duccio Alessandri, Future Brown, Avv.
Antonio Fabi, Albert Frey, Giovanna Luminati and Walter Balduino, Roberto Mantovani, and
Fabio and Giovanni Battista Salvatori.
Many thanks to the following research libraries and their staff members: Biblioteca Apostolica 5
Vaticana, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana di Venezia, McGill University Libraries (Blackader-
Lauterman, Blacker-Wood, Osler), New York Public Research Library, The Pierpont Morgan
Library, and to the memory of the University of Pennsylvania's Furness Library (pre-
renovation).
Portions of this research have been published in the following books and journals: L'Arte della 6
matematiche nella prospettiva (with thanks to Rocco Sinisgalli, editor), Chora 4: Intervals in
the Philosophy of Architecture (with thanks to Alberto Prez-Gmez and Stephen Parcells),
the Nexus Network Journal (with thanks to Kim Williams, Editor-in-Chief), and the
Proceedings of the 2003 ACSA International Conference. Special thanks to Tony Whitfield,
chair of the Product Design Department, and colleagues at Parsons and The New School, as
well as to the following students, who contributed to this project: Dina Bernabo, Javier Bone-
Carbone, Risa Ishikawa, Sara Musselman, Tom O'Hare, Hironao Kato, and in particular,
Amelia Amelia and Kazushige Yoshitake. And finally, to Ivan Illich, for prodding.

IAQ: Infrequently Asked Questions, with links to extended

captions
EC1: Why is Federico da Montefeltro often depicted in profile?
EC2: What did the virtue of Prudence represent for the quattrocento?
EC3: What do the images of a squirrel and a crane suggest about Federico's leadership?
EC4: What are the roots of the Urbino court's interest in astronomy and time?
EC5: What does Prudence signify to architects?
EC6: Why are Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro's initials ingrained in a mirror at Gubbio?
EC7: What did the quattrocento think about the mechanical arts?
EC8: How did Federico, Guidobaldo, and their contemporaries think that they thought?
EC9: How might one's body manifest right or wrong habits of thought?
EC10: What kind of music was considered to be the most appropriate for learning?
EC11: What do parrots and parakeets have to say about a quattrocento education?
EC12: Who was Urbino's "Prince of Astrology," and why was he interested in tarot cards?
EC13: What were quattrocento pedagogical views toward natural talent and experience?
EC14: What are some of the basic memory images found in the Gubbio studiolo?
EC15: What might architecture have signified for Federico da Montefeltro?
EC16: Why are there birdcages in both studioli?
EC17: How did the quattrocento reinvent the wheel?
EC18: In addition to designing fortresses and writing treatises, in what other ways did a
quattrocento architect such as Francesco di Giorgio contribute to the life of a court and city?
EC19: How should a building manifest the character of its owner?

Architecture and Memory IAQ Robert Kirkbride
EC20: How do processions and celebrations create communal memory?
EC21: Why is the infant wearing a coral necklace and pendant in two of Piero della
Francesca's paintings?
EC22: What clues might the hunting horn and tuning key at Gubbio offer about the spiritual
devotion of the Montefeltro?
EC23: Why would mathematics be significant for Urbino and the Montefeltro dukes?
EC24: Who was Cardinal Bessarion, and how was he important to Federico?
EC25: Why were 72 carved stone tablets inset into the facade of Urbino's ducal palace?
EC26: Is there a relation between visual perspective and musical counterpoint?
EC27: Why was the Order of the Garter prominently displayed in both studioli?
EC28: Why is a seven-sided figure included in the Urbino studiolo?
EC29: Why are the wheels in the Urbino studiolo bench legs fitted with hubs?
EC30: What were the Urbino court's thoughts about the soul?

Extended Captions
EC1
Federico had written to Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, 1

Fig. 2.1. Battista Sforza and
that his eye and his son, Buonconte (d. 1458), had been Federico da Montefeltro.
taken by God as retribution for his own sins: "Io conosco To chapter 2, paragraph 3
che per li peccati miei el nostro Signore Dio me ha tolto
un occhio et questio figliolo che era la vita mia et el contentamente mio et de i suditi
miei" (Pernis and Adams, Montefeltro and Malatesta, 76). Martin Kemp has suggested that
this injury, coupled with Alberti's recommendation to painters to obscure "unpleasing"
features, might have been the source of Piero della Francesca's famous portrayal of the duke's
profile: "Apelles painted the portrait of Antigonus only from the side of his face away from his
bad eye" (Alberti, On Painting, trans. Grayson, 2.40; for Kemp's note, 99n43). This is a
sensible supposition, though such profiles were commonly used for casting medals and
minting coins, a subject of particular interest to humanists. Earlier in his career, Piero had
portrayed Sigismondo Malatesta in pure profile on several occasions. One work in particular,
located in the Tempio Malatestiana (designed by Alberti in the early 1450s), presents
(Si)gismondo kneeling before the Holy Roman Emperor, who had knighted both Federico (in
Mantova) and Sigismondo en route to meet with the new pope, Eugenius IV. This painting
includes an idealized cityscape circumscribed in an oculus.
EC2
Prudence, the abbreviated form of providence (pro 2

+videreto foresee), represents one's capacity to learn the Allegory of Good Government.
from past experiences to envision problems before they To chapter 3, paragraph 17
occur, thereby informing one's strategies and actions in
the present. For this reason, Prudence was perceived a virtue vital to success in political,
military, and architectural endeavors. In the Urbino palace, the snakes of Prudence
(representing the wisdom of Asclepius and Hippocrates) are depicted in the Door of the
Virtues. Several images in the studioli point to the significance(s) of the virtue for Federico.
Beneath the miniature studiolo at the Urbino studiolo's east wall are three tapers, one ignited,
recalling a detail from Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Virtues of Good Government. In this fresco,
Prudence is among the personified virtues essential for "The Common Good"; she is shown
holding an object surmounted by the words "Past, Present, Future." Although Randolph Starn
describes this object as a water clock, closer inspection identifies three flames issuing forth
(Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 53). The figure of Prudence points to the brightest, which corresponds
to "Present." According to Virginia Tenzer, the fact that only one taper at Urbino is lit suggests
that this virtue is enacted in the present, at the chiasmus of the past and future, and "that

Architecture and Memory Extended Captions Robert Kirkbride
prudence is a habit of mind exercised by Federico" (Iconography, 198). In matters of

governance, as Machiavelli notes, "all wise princes should . . . consider not only present but
also future discords and diligently guard against them; for being foreseen they can easily be
remedied, but if one waits till they are at hand, the medicine is no longer in time as the
malady has become incurable" (The Prince, 43). Such a discordant malady could have easily
afflicted Urbino following Federico's death. By appointing Ottaviano regent of the dukedom
and Guidobaldo's principal tutor, Federico sought a smooth transference of power to a young
and vulnerable prince. If not prudently handled, this transition could have been turbulent. It
would not have been unusual for the time if Antonio da Montefeltro, an elder ("natural") son
and well-trained military captain, were to challenge the young prince's authority. Early in his
own childhood, Federico had been banished from the Urbino court by his father's new wife,
Caterina Colonna, who had recently given birth to Oddantonio, his younger, legitimate
brother. Perhaps by reflecting on his youth, Federico neither dispossessed Antonio nor kept
him from court, which might have precipitated bitterness.
EC3
Fig. 3.6. Collared squirrel, Urbino Fig. 3.7. Crane, Gubbio studiolo.
studiolo. To chapter 3, paragraph 21
To chapter 3, paragraph 21
Recalling Wolfgang Liebenwein's narrative for the east wall, the squirrel represents the 3
prudent prince who spends each moment actively pro+viding for the future well-being of his
state. Machiavelli observes that a well-fortified, well-pro+visioned city is less willingly
attacked by outsiders (The Prince, 76). As a city unto itself, the ducal palace at Urbino
incorporated a network of subterranean chambers containing vast supplies of food and water,
accommodations, and stables for its military forces, as well as occupations (including
metalworking) that would provide Urbino's citizens with employment in case of lengthy
sieges. The capacity to foresee events is an ability for which Federico gained particular
renown: his success as a military commander offered, in Vespasiano da Bisticci's words,
"proof of the value of an active chief in settling the plan of campaign, and how on him
depends victory and the safety of the state" (Vespasian Memoirs, 90). Prudence was essential
in a military leader to orchestrate and enact offensive and defensive strategies. The more
precisely one might prognosticate events (by various forms of reconnaissance, including
astrology and an open dialogue with one's perceived adversaries), the more successfully one
could plan effectively and strengthen the resolve of one's allies, a notoriously difficult
proposition for the quattrocento condottiere. Akin to the image of the squirrel, the impresa of
the crane, found in both studioli, signifies a leader who "keeps his head up" to forewarn his
subjects. From Bartolomeo Platina's On Right Pleasure (5.4.91), we learn the following:
"Choosing a leader whom they follow, cranes come to us from the eastern sea by a long

migration. They have at the end of the line some who keep the flock in order by voice. They
also keep watches by night, holding a pebble in one raised foot so that, if it is relaxed in sleep
and inactive, it will proclaim the guard's negligence. . . . [T]he leader, with his head stretched
upward, keeps a lookout, and gives forewarning." Luciano Cheles has also observed that "on
both sides of the [Carte de trionfi] card devoted to 'Geometria,' a wading bird that may well
be a crane is represented in the foreground of the landscape," a feature that he suggests "hints
at surveying" (Studiolo of Urbino, 81). This signification would have been particularly
appropriate to a leader whose territories were rapidly expanding and who was an enthusiastic
patron of the military, civic, and artistic potentials of perspective. Federico's employment of
artillery, architects, surveyors, perspective, historical precedents, and prudently conceived
battle plans were essential to what contemporaries described as "l'arte del Duca
d'Urbino" (Tommasoli, La vita di Federico da Montefeltro, 348n142). Cheles notes also that
the crane appears (later) in Ripa's Iconologia as an attribute of "Consideratione," a term that
means, literally, to think with the stars (Studiolo of Urbino, 80; see also Illich, H O, 1115).
2
EC4
The revision of the calendar preoccupied Federico's 4

colleagues and court astronomers. Nicholas of Cusa, sphere, Urbino studiolo.
among the first to take into account the differences of To chapter 3, paragraph 25
longitude for various meridians, had unsuccessfully
attempted a reform at the Council of Basel in the 1430s. Regiomontanus, secretary to Cardinal
Bessarion and connected to Urbino by various personages, was summoned by Pope Sixtus IV
in 1475 to revise the calendar but died shortly after arriving in Rome. (His works in the ducal
library include a calendar in his native German and an Almanac.) In 1513, Paul of Middleburg
(astronomer to both Federico and Guidobaldo) successfully petitioned the Holy See to hold a
special council devoted to these matters. His treatise Paulina de recta Paschae celebratione,
deeply indebted to Roger Bacon's Opus majus of 1267, compelled his friend Copernicus to
expand research on the sun and moon, resulting in the development of the heliocentric
system. Paul's treatise was also central to John Dee's proposal for calendar reformation to
Queen Elizabeth in 1582. Dee had visited Urbino in 1563, before his publication of a foreword
to the English translation of Euclid's Elements. During his stay, he copied several manuscripts
from the ducal library, including Piero della Francesca's treatise on the five regular solids.
Piero's notions of universal structure were reenvisioned in the late 16th century by Johannes
Kepler, who perceived the nesting of the regular ("Platonic") solids to represent the concentric
orbits of the celestial bodies. The significance of astronomy and astrology and the influence of
Federico da Montefeltro is underscored by Marsilio Ficino in a 1492 letter to Paul of
Middleburg: "This century, like a golden age, has restored to light the liberal arts, which were
almost extinct: grammar, poetry, rhetoric, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, the ancient
singing of songs to the Orphic lyre. . . . Achieving what has been honored among the ancients,
but almost forgotten since, the age has joined wisdom with eloquence, and prudence with the

military art, and this most strikingly in Federigo, Duke of Urbino, as if proclaimed in the
presence of Pallas herself, and it has made his son and his brothers the heirs of his virtue. In
you also, my dear Paul, this century appears to have perfected astronomy, and in Florence it
has recalled the platonic teaching from darkness into light. In Germany in our times have
been invented the instruments for printing books, and those tables in which in a single hour
(if I may speak thus) the whole face of the heavens for an entire century is revealed, and one
may mention also the Florentine machine which shows the daily motions of the
heavens" (Ross and McLaughlin, eds., Portable Renaissance Reader, 79). For an illuminating
discussion of the astrolabe and armillary sphere in the Urbino studiolo, their uses and
significance, see David King, "Astrolabe Depicted."
EC5
In the Art of Building, Alberti stresses the importance of 5

Fig. 3.9. Exploded axonometric of
prudence in architectural practice: "It is the mark of assembly of an intarsia panel in the
considerable experience to have so thoroughly thought Gubbio studiolo.
To chapter3, paragraph 27
out everything and determined it in the mind
beforehand, that in the course of construction, or on
completion of the work, one is not forced to admit, 'I wish I had not done this: I would have
preferred it done otherwise.' And the penalty to be paid for poorly constructed work is
surprisingly heavy: with time we eventually realise the rashness and foolishness of any move
not considered carefully enough at the outset; if the work is not taken down or amended, the
mistake committed is the source of continual grievance, and if it is demolished, we are
tormented at the thought of the loss and expense, and full of remorse for the lightness and
fickleness of our opinion" (2.1.33; also 9.9.313). To avoid such torment and remorse,
Francesco di Giorgio reinforces Vitruvius's advice (De architectura, 1.1.1) that an architect
should keep two notions foremost in the mindfabrica (fabrication) and raciocinatione
(reasoning). "Fabrication," writes di Giorgio, "concerns the practical use and goal of a project,"
whereas "reasoning is the demonstration of things carried out in a theoretically sound
manner before the project is actually made" (Martini, I trattati di architettura, 3738).
Although translated variously as technology (Granger) and theory (Morgan), for Vitruvius,
Alberti, and di Giorgio the term ratiocinatione represented an inward, dialogical process of
reasoningfundamental to the art of rhetoricthat would be rendered visible by the
lineamenti of architectural drawings and models and realized through fabrication. Federico
held architects, artisans, and the mechanical arts in the highest esteem, owing to their direct
influence on his military success and their contributions to the princely magnificentia of his
fortresses and palaces. During war or peace, the discipline of architecture was central to the
duke's modus operandi, elegantly enlacing the fortunes of patron, architect, and artisan.
According to Vespasiano, Federico's success at the Battle of Volterra in 1472 was attributed
"entirely to his foresight; because, on account of the nature of the site, it could never have
been effected by force of arms alone" (Vespasian Memoirs, 92). In addition to the strategic

use of artillery, Federico directed several Florentine master carpenters placed under his
command to construct temporary bastions that were critical to the successful siege. One of the
carpenters, Francesco di Giovanni, carried out large architectural commissions, including
carving and intarsia, that were often shared with other workshops, such as those of Baccio and
Piero Pontelli and Benedetto and Giuliano da Maiano. Following the victory, Federico
commissioned the Pontelli and Maiano workshops for the intarsia work of the doors and
studioli of the Montefeltro palaces.
EC6
Fig. 3.10. Mirror, Gubbio studiolo. Fig. 3.11. Convex mirror and
To chapter 3, paragraph 29 surround fabricated by the Maiano
brothers, 1480.
Mirrors, ancient icons for reflective prudence, are represented in the intarsia of both studioli. 6
Nicholas of Cusa describes Providence as the gaze of God that he beholds "as in a mirror, in an
icon, in a riddle" (De visione Dei, 17). A popular quattrocento exercise of rhetorical
amplification translated paradigma, the Greek term for king, as "speculum," emphasizing that
the prince should be an exemplary mirror for his people (Labalme, Bernardo Giustiniani, 46).
Reference to this popular trope, known as the "Mirror of Princes," is evident at Gubbio in the
round mirror bearing Duke Guidobaldo's initials. Mirrors were also believed to possess
magical qualities, and their fabrication was secretively guarded. Brunelleschi used a mirror for
his empirical experiments in perspective with the Baptistry of St. John in Florence. Although
this mirror is generally believed to have been flat and rectangular, like the sheet of glass
suspended in the Urbino studiolo, David Hockney has demonstrated (Secret Knowledge, 205
210) that a round concave mirror, such as those fabricated in Bruges and Ghent, would also
have functioned adequately, if by a different process. While the wood grain of the intarsia
renders it impossible to determine whether the round mirror at Gubbio is concave or convex,
it is worth noting that Justus, who painted the portraits in both studioli, hailed from Ghent.
Also, concave (or "burning") mirrors were also well documented in medieval treatises on
optics, as well as in a work attributed to Archimedes, a copy of which had belonged to Piero
della Francesca and became part of the ducal library (I.V. #286). On the other hand, one must
also consider a framed convex lens (ca. 1480), currently part of the Lehman Collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of New York, attributed to the Maiano workshop in the same period
during which they fabricated the Gubbio studiolo.

EC7
The quattrocento experienced an increased valuation of 7

Fig. 4.1. Double Portrait of Federico
and investment in worldly pursuits, including the and Guidobaldo da Montefeltro.
products of the mechanical arts. In his treatise on the To chapter 4, paragraph 1
Florentine family, I libri della famiglia, Alberti echoes
Vitruvius in describing the reciprocity between material works and the workings of the mind:
"There are . . . activities in which the powers of body and mind function together to bring
profit. Such are the occupations of painters, sculptors, musicians and others like them. All
these ways of making a living, since they depend mainly on our personal powers, are what you
call arts, and do not go down in shipwrecks but swim away with our naked selves. They keep
us company all our lives and feed and maintain our name and fame" (145). Traditionally, the
intangible skills and tangible products of the arts were considered essential to personal and
communal remembrance. In the Symposium, Plato offers artistic production as an admirable
means of begetting progeny that contributes to the achievement of virtue and immortality. The
official portrait of Duke Federico with Prince Guidobaldo, painted in 1476 by Pedro
Berreguete, embodies both forms of "begetting." In a posture recalling the tradition of
patrilineal recognition in ancient Rome, Guidobaldo stands at the right knee of his father,
holding the baton of command in his right hand (Onians, Origins of European Thought, 178
86).
EC8
Fig. 4.6. Section of human head Fig. 4.7. Diagram of human mind
after Leonardo. after Galen.
To chapter 4, paragraph 13 To chapter 4, paragraph 13
Fig. 4.8. Diagram of human mind Fig. 4.9. Diagram of human mind
after Lokhorst and Kaitaro's model after Avicenna.
of Costa ben Luca. To chapter 4, paragraph 13
Fig. 4.10. Diagram of the human

mind.
What were the postures conducive for thought? According to Alberti, "The movements of the 8
soul are made known by movements of the body," a statement conveying the essence of
several views of cognitive mechanics (De pictura, trans. Spencer, 77). Like distinctions of
human intelligence and educational disciplines (the number of liberal and mechanical arts),

theories about the faculties of mental activity, their location in the brain and their interaction
with the senses and the soul have been fluid and ever-shifting. The Christian Syrian physician
Costa ben Luca (864923) believed that one should stand erect with neck extended in order
to recollect and stoop slightly in order to cogitate. Why? There are two parts of the brain,
Costa asserted, anterior and posterior; the front portion is further divided into phantasia and
imagination. These two ventricles connect to each other and to the hind portion, memoria, by
way of a common passageway in the middle of the brain. This central area was considered by
many (including Leonardo, fig. 4.6) to be the sensus communis (common sense), a meeting
place for the senses and the vital spirit of the soul, which arrives from the heart. In Costa's
view, then, there are four "ventricles" in the brain. Sensations are received, he continues, by
delicate pulses from the net below the brain (the rete mirabile), propelling the vital spirit
(pneuma) into the front, where it is purified by passing back and forth between phantasia and
imagination. While moving between these ventricles, this spirit passes through the common
space, where it is "digested" and converted into a "finer and clearer spirit" by mixture with the
"power of the soul." This pneumatic model would be further developed by Avicenna and
embedded in the writings of Ficino and Castiglione.
In the common space between the front and back of the brain Costa describes a valve, referred 9
to by Galen (fig. 4.7) as the vermis (worm/serpent), which regulates the flow of pneuma to
and from the memory. According to Costa's model, then, one should stand erect with neck
extended when recollecting, a posture said to raise the vermis and open the foramen, allowing
spirits to flow from the front into the hind portion of the brain (fig. 4.8. left). "If the foramen
is not open," Costa stresses, "there is no flow of spirit to the posterior part of the brain and the
person does not remember and will not respond to the questions he is asked. This also
explains," he continues, "why someone who wants to remember something lifts his head and
tilts it backwards and looks upwards with staring eyes" (Lokhorst and Kaitaro, "Descartes'
Theory," 8). To think or form speculations, by contrast, one should stoop slightly, a motion
that lowers the vermis and closes the foramen, allowing the spirit to "rest, become stronger
and increase its power to think and understand (fig. 4.8, right). This explains," Costa
reasons, "why someone who thinks bends his head towards the earth and watches it intently
and stoops forward, as if he were writing some document and drawing some figures on it" (9).
Illustrations of the brain, Lina Bolzoni observes, were a common reference point in medical 10
and mnemonic treatises: the boundaries of these maps were in constant flux, reflecting
constant change in views of the structure and workings of the mind (Gallery of Memory, 130
39). Where Galen and Costa locate the vermis at the brain's posterior, for example, Avicenna
places it at the front, between phantasia/imagination and the central common space (fig.
4.9). Where Costa describes four ventricles in the brain, Avicenna includes five, by dividing
the central common space into the faculties of cogitation and estimation. Subsequent
physician-philosophers simplified the brain divisions to three main chambers, placing
imagination to the fore, memory to the aft, and cogitation between. This is the arrangement
illustrated in Leonardo's sections of the human head and described by Publicius, who adds:

"Between the posterior and anterior ventricles [Hippocrates] located a middle organ, the
pineal gland. When we apply ourselves to seeking something with memory, this pineal gland
is opened to provide access to the animate spirit psychical pneuma from the anterior to the
posterior ventricle. For this reason they say that Proclus, a professor of the medical art, said
that the posterior ventricle is more noble. For only when the psychical pneuma is serene,
lucid, and clear does it cross over to the posterior ventricle" (Publicius, Art of Memory, 28).
Publicius's substitution of the pineal gland for the vermisan opinion held by the "ignorant
and stupid," according to Galen (Lokhorst and Kaitaro, "Descartes' Theory," 7)is a notion
that may be traced back through a translation by Constantine the African to Ibn al-Jazzar
(900980), whose views are otherwise consistent with Costa's. Ibn al-Jazzar describes the
pineal gland as resembling a worm, although as Lokhorst and Kaitaro illustrate, Costa had
regarded the vermis and pineal gland as separate entities. Although the publication of
Vesalius's anatomical dissections in 1543 would disprove many of these theories, including
the role of the vermis, we find an elaboration of Avicenna's arrangementwith vermis intact
at the forein the early 17th century illustrations of Robert Fludd's treatises (fig. 4.10). For
Descartes's innovative contributions to this matter, see Lokhorst and Kaitaro, "Descartes'
Theory," and Crary, Techniques of the Observer.
EC9
From Aristotle through Hugh of St. Victor to Castiglione, 11

Fig. 4.11. Instrumental
ethical prudence is expressed by such terms as ordo demonstration of rectitude.
(source of order and orthodoxy) and recto (right). Hence, To chapter 4, paragraph 16
recto (right judgment, right action, and right pleasure)
was placed in contrast to sinistra (left) and its sinister connotations. Right habits, ingrained in
mind and body by exercise, facilitated right judgment by procuring one's ability to respond to
a given circumstance promptly and accordingly. Without agile recollection of memory's store,
it was believed, one could not confidently foresee (pro+videre) the ramifications of one's
decisions and actions, and thus one could not judge "rightly." Habit, meanwhile, is intimately
interlaced with habitat: both are derived from a combination of habere, to have, and abitare,
to dwell. The Italian equivalent, abito, has been described as "a special condition or habitual
quality of the mind which manifests itself outwardly in a special costume or equally habitual
behaviour, which in turn reacts upon the disposition and moral attitude of the
individual" (Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 351n123). In a comparison of clothing and
writing, Petrarch notes: "I much prefer that my style [stilus, pen] be my own, uncultivated and
rude, but made to fit, as a garment, to the measure of my mind, rather than to someone
else's . . . each [writer] must develop and keep his own [style] lest . . . by dressing grotesquely
in others' clothes . . . we may be ridiculed" (Familiares, 22.2). In addition to its connection to
habitation, habit is intimately related to recollection. Carruthers observes: "The ability to
recollect is natural to everyone, but the procedure itself is formed by habitus, training and

practice. . . . Defining memory as habitus makes it the key linking term between knowledge
and action, conceiving of good and doing it. Memory is an essential treasure house for both
the intellect and virtuous action" (Book of Memory, 64).
EC10
One of the primary purposes of education, according to 12

Fig. 4.12. Perspectival "butterfly,"
Aristotle, is to avoid idleness by the correct use of leisure. after missing figure at Gubbio
To instill "civilized habits" Aristotle recommends studiolo.
drawing, which teaches one "to be observant of physical
beauty," and music, specifying the even-tempered Dorian
mode as the most suitable for the education of youth (Aristotle, Politics, 8.3, 1342a28: Lydian
is also recommended). The "butterfly" depicted in a (lost) panel below the window at Gubbio
(fig. 4.12) was used in perspective and astronomical observation. It is difficult to regard the
number and variety of musical instruments in the studioli without considering their
association to the muses. In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville had defined music as an
"art of modulation consisting of tone and song, called music by derivation from the Muses. . . .
[I]t was fabled by the poets that the Muses were the daughters of Jove and Memory. Unless
sounds are remembered by man, they perish, for they cannot be written down" (Isidore of
Seville, Etymologiae, I.V. #79, cited by Levenson, Measure by Measure, 44; see also Ong,
Orality and Literacy, 32. Leisure, music and the muses are discussed further in chapter 6).
EC11
Birds and cages figure prominently in both Montefeltro 13

Fig. 4.13. Papagalli and mechanical
studioli, evoking multiple associations. At Urbino, a clock, Urbino studiolo.
birdcage containing two parrots or parakeets (the term To chapter 4, paragraph 18
Extended Caption 16
papagallo encompasses both) is found on the left-facing
door leading to the duke's bedchambers, evocatively
twinned with the mechanical clock found on the adjacent, right-facing door. Luciano Cheles
has observed that the parrot is an attribute of Mercury, the god of eloquence: "It is tempting to
argue that Rhetoric has been symbolized . . . by the twin motif of the cage with the parrots,
and the clock. Perhaps it is no coincidence that in his influential manual for painters,
Iconologia, Cesare Ripa described Eloquence as a woman with three main attributes: a book,
an hourglass and a parrot. Ripa wrote the first version of his manual in the late 16th century,
but the idea of coupling a time-measuring device to a parrot to signify the well-regulated art of
Eloquence may have already been 'in the air,' in uncodified form, in the 15th century. It is
equally likely that the designer of the programme associated two obvious individual symbols
to create a new metaphor" (Studiolo of Urbino, 60n24). Another set of meanings for the
papagalli and clock was pointed out to the author by Roberto Mantovani, curator of the

Historical Collection of Scientific Instruments preserved at the Physics Laboratory of the

University of Urbino. According to Mantovani, it was also "in the air" that a caged bird
represented the ability to hold one's tongue, especially regarding political matters, and that
the clock referred to prayer (by the regular chiming of the prayer bell). As we will see in
chapter 4, many other significances were attributed to the papagalli and their cages.
EC12
Fig. 4.15. Gramatica XXI after Fig. 4.16. Late quattrocento

traditional Tarocchi di Mantegna. emblems worn with armor.
As early as 1447, when he returned to Urbino to assist Federico's governance, Ottaviano degli 14
Ubaldini had earned the epithet "Prince of Astrology." While in Milan (ca. 143247),
Ottaviano frequented the court of the Visconti, where he became deeply interested in astrology
and the occult. During this time (1440), the famous Carte di trionfi were painted for Duke
Filippo Maria Visconti. Also known as the Tarocchi di Mantegna, the design of these cards
has been misattributed to Andrea Mantegna, whose name appears to have become associated
with the cards during the 16th century. Each "card" presented an allegorical image for use in
"play" and memory work, elaborating on the tradition of the trionfi (triumphs or trumps) of
Petrarch, in which each image is said to "triumph" over its precedent. The Urbino court's
interest in this work of Petrarch's is pronounced: three copies of De remedio utriusque
Fortunae were present in the ducal library: I.V. #58 (bound with Lactantius's Firmiami,
Augustine's City of God, Boethius's De consolatione, and Salomonis's Moralium), 556 and
CXLIX.53. Bernardi Glicini's Expositio in triumphos Petrarcae is I.V. #CLII.2.
The Carte di trionfi comprises fifty images, grouped into five decades. The first includes the 15
archetypal social stations: beggar, servant, artisan, merchant, gentleman, knight, duke, king,
emperor, and (female) pope. The second decade includes the nine Muses and Apollo. The
liberal arts form the third decade, beginning with Grammar (fig. 4.15) and adding poetry,
philosophy and theology to the traditional seven. The fourth decade is dedicated to the sun,
time, the cosmos, and the virtues (cardinal first, then theological), and the final group consists
of celestial bodies (and pagan gods), concluding with the "octava sfera," "primo mobile," and
"prima causa." The play of the cards offered a recombinatorial scheme for memory, exercising
one's genius at generating narrative associations between visual and verbal figures. The
influence of these open-ended images and other recondite forms of cerebral play on courts
such as Urbino's has been discussed by Luciano Cheles, among others (Studiolo of Urbino,
8287), and continues into the cinquecento. Castiglione recounts: "Often 'devices' (imprese),
as we now call them, were displayed; in discussing which there was wonderful
diversion" (Book of the Courtier, 12). Castiglione's work was first printed in 1528 at the Aldine
Press in Venice, six years after "devices" were gathered under the rubric Emblematum libellus

by Andreas Alciati in Milan. Alciati's enormously popular book spawned numerous imitations,
including Cesare Ripa's Iconografie (1603). Leondard Opdycke notes, "These devices
[imprese] so much in vogue during the 16th century in Italy, were the 'inventions' which
Giovio (ca. 1480) says 'the great lords and noble cavaliers of our time like to wear on their
armour, caparisons and banners, to signify a part of their generous thoughts.' [fig. 4.16] They
consisted of a figure or picture, and a motto nearly always in Latin" (Book of the Courtier,
329n40). These figures supplied patrons and designers with ideas for architectural ornament.
In Rovilli's 1550 Latin version of Alciati's treatise, emblems are said to furnish "no vain
picture which may feed the eyes": "For I say this is their use, that as often as any one may
wish to assign fulness [sic] to empty things, ornament to bare things, speech to dumb things,
and reason to senseless things, he may from a little book of Emblems, as from an excellently
well-prepared hand book, have what he may be able to impress upon the walls of houses, on
windows of glass, on tapestry, on hangings, on tablets, vases, ensigns, seals, garments, the
table, the couch, the arms, the sword, and lastly, furniture of every kind" (Alciati's Emblems,
6). For more on the "play" of memory and its influence on cinquecento compositional
invention, see chapter 3 of Bolzoni's Gallery of Memory, "Memory Games."
EC13
Two of the three parts of rhetorical ability described by 16

Cicero in De oratore (1.25)doctrina (theory) and studiolo.
ingenio (talent)are present in Veterani's dystich at To chapter 4, paragraph 21
Gubbio. The third ability, exercitatio or imitatio
(practice), is in fact the exhortatory objective of the dystich andrecalling the fixing gazes of
Federico and the goddess Rhetoricof the Gubbio studiolo in general. On closer observation,
we notice that INGENIOQ is located directly above the cabinet containing an architect's set
square/level, an apparent compositional corroboration between Veterani's poem and
Francesco di Giorgio's design that reflects a deeper reciprocity between architecture and
rhetoric. In the first chapter of the first book of De architectura, Vitruvius asserts that natural
talent requires the discipline provided by precepts: "Neither talent without instruction nor
instruction without talent can produce the perfect craftsman" (De architectura, 1.1.3). A
combination of ingenium and discipline likewise marks the ideal orator. Cicero notes:
"Oratory is an art [like architecture] in the loose sense that its successes can be codified and
taught; but the chief virtue of the orator is inborn, ingenium, from which sharpness of mind
arise sharpness in invention, richness in exposition and ornament, firm and long-lasting
memory" (Cicero De oratore 1.xxiii; Summers, Judgment of Sense, 130n14).

EC14
Fig. 4.18. Alphabetic mnemonics. Fig. 4.19. Cabinet with hunting

To chapter 4, paragraph 26 horn, Gubbio studiolo.
Fig. 4.20. Tau-shaped tuning key, Fig. 4.21. Cipher of Gramatica.

Gubbio studiolo. To chapter 4, paragraph 26
The Gubbio studiolo houses an array of memory images. Among those items shown hanging 17
from a nail, itself a mnemotechnique (Publicius, Art of Memory, 17), we find alphamnemonic
ciphers and "tokens of things." Publicius includes a mnemonic alphabet, later recycled by
Johannes Romberch in Congestorium artificiose memorie (1533) and emulated by Robert
Fludd in Utriusque cosmic maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica (1621), that evokes
comparison to several items in the Urbino studiolo (fig. 4.18). The timbre, astrolabe, and
Order of the Garter, for example, would have been suitable as the letter "O." Such imagery is
more prevalent at Gubbio, where the following items are suspended from a hook: a C-shaped
horn of Cornu (fig. 4.19), an O-shaped timbre, a tau-shaped tuning key (fig. 4.20), the A-
shaped set square/level of Architectura, and the O-shaped round mirror. It seems quite
plausible that there are further (as yet undetected) items at Gubbio and Urbino that were used
for alphamnemonics owing to their visual character or word associations they initiated. For
example, as Mary Carruthers and Henry Bayerle note: "In a passage described in detail by
Yates, Romberch produced an image in which Grammar is personified by a woman holding
two birds and with the images on her chest representing the letters C, O, N, and T from the
pictorial alphabet [fig. 4.21]. The two birds, taken from another pictorial alphabet, are a pie
(pica) which calls to mind the letter P and thus predicatio, and an eagle (aquila) which
represents A and thus applicatio. The pictorial letters call to mind a third element of grammar,
continentia" (Publicius, Art of Memory, 2). As examples of "tokens of things," Publicius
includes such occupational images as the architect's set square/level and the astronomer's
astrolabe and those evoking metaphor, such as the "sword of justice" (Art of Memory, 26).
Poetic figures were also highly effective. Publicius offers Ovid's characterization of Sleep
(Metamorphoses 11.593) as a worthy example: "He made for her a dark house, from which all
barking of dogs, and also every wakeful winged creature is absent. The descent and rustling
sound of waters, poppies, and a bed made of ebony incite the reclining god [herself] to
sleep" (Art of Memory, 20).

EC15
In the duke's biography, Vespasiano da Bisticci expounds 18

on Federico's love for architecture: "As to architecture it fortress and human body.
may be said that no one of his age, high or low, knew it To chapter 4, paragraph 29
so thoroughly. We may see in the buildings he
constructed, the grand style and the due measurement and proportion, especially in his
palace, which has no superior amongst the buildings of the time, none so well considered, or
so full of fine things. Though he had his architects about him, he always first realised the
design and then explained the proportions and all else; indeed, to hear him discourse
thereanent, it would seem that his chief talent lay in this art; so well he knew how to expound
and carry out its principles. He built not only palaces and the like, but many fortresses in his
dominions of construction much stronger than those of old time; for some, which were built
too high, the Duke made much lower, knowing that the fire of the bombards would not then
hurt them" (Vespasian Memoirs, 100). In his translation of and commentary on Plato's De
regno, dedicated to Federico in 1482, Marsilio Ficino draws a comparison between the
objectives of an architect and a ruler. Like an architect, who reunites the various materials and
parts of a building into an organic whole, the ruler combines "the diverse interests of the
inhabitants of his kingdom in order to lead them to a common goal, the well-being of their
country" (Pernis, "Ficino's Platonism and the Court of Urbino," 12122).
EC16
Fig. 4.27. Papagalli and cage, Fig. 4.28. Papagallo and birdcage,
Urbino studiolo. Gubbio studiolo.
Fig. 4.29. Image of a spinning

birdcage.
Bees and birds have long represented thoughts, so hives and birdcages like those in both 19
studioli have represented houses of memory. In Plato's Theatetus the birdcage and its
contents provide a metaphor for knowledge and the well-trained memory necessary to
maintain order among the birdlike thoughts gathered in the mind. For Hippocrates and Plato
the mind was not limited to the brain; it encompassed as well the innards, or splanchna, held
in the "cagelike" breast. Hidden from plain view, splanchna needed to be opened and
inspected to disclose their contents. They are the very butterflies in our stomachs. Animal
entrails, for example, were believed to contain obscure messages from the gods, requiring the
practice of haruspices for their decipherment. Human splanchna were also subjected to

intense scrutiny. Ruth Padel recounts an ancient Greek drinking song that urges one to divide
another's breast and examine his mind (nous) to determine whether he is a friend or foe (In
and Out of the Mind, 14). An Aesopic fable, commented on by the Byzantine scholar
Eustathius (I.V. graec. 132), relates that Prometheus fitted the human breast with gates to
render our thoughts and feelings impregnable to others. Vitruvius laments this obscurity,
calling for windows in the human breast (pectora fenestrata) that might render one's thoughts
"open for inspection" (De architectura, 3.Preface.1). With such windows, he contends, greater
certainty would be achieved in judging those talents that are otherwise concealed (pectoribus
ingeniis). Our modern-day perception of the eyes as the "windows of the soul" harkens to this
mind-body tradition. From Leonardo's point of view, however, the eyes were window- (or
velo-) like because they provided the soul with two means of egress from the body, not
because they permitted others to see into oneself.
EC17
Fig. 4.40. A concentric Fig. 4.41. Astrolabe and armillary

combinatorial memory wheel. sphere, Urbino studiolo.
One of Publicius's wheels includes a vermiform serpent as its central volvelle rather than 20
moveable rings, a detail perhaps conceived as a metonymic means to open and close the
vermis valve in the brain, activating cogitation and recollection. The combinatorial
mechanisms attributed to Raymond Lull seem to predate him by Arabic science as well as the
ancient Romans and Greeks. In turn, they prefigure those elaborated by Robert Fludd,
Giordano Bruno, Charles Babbage, and the most recent nanochip. The astrolabe operated
under a similar mechanical principal. Our mechanical prowess always frames, it seems, how
we think we think. Johannes Romberch interpreted Publicius's wheel as a combinatorial form
of a pictorial alphabet, including the image in his treatise along with an explanation of its
usefulness in remembering the first letters of any phrase or saying (Publicius, Art of Memory,
7). For more on the literary influence these mechanisms, see chapter 2, "Trees of Knowledge
and Rhetorical Machines," in Bolzoni, Gallery of Memory. Also, the vermiform constellation
Draco, which traditionally occupies the polar position in the heavens of the northern
hemisphere, encircles the center of a late quattrocento tapestry depicting the heavens as a
wheel of fortune and an enormous astrolabe. This tapestry was woven in Tournai, the source
of Montefeltro's tapestries, for the Toledo Cathedral (see Circa 1492, fig. 111). Doctors and
barbers used wheel diagrams like a 1486 volvelle from the guild book of the Barber Surgeons
of York (also in Circa 1492) to determine propitious occasions for surgery. The accompanying
image of the zodiac man displays the parts of the body and their governing signs, indicating to
the doctor-barber those parts "which should not be operated on or subjected to blood-letting
when the moon was located in the sign ruling over it" (Circa 1492, 220). The cardinal

directions on Publicius's mnemonic diagram include septentrio, ortus, meridies, and occasus.
Etymological analysis of these terms yields the following: Septentrio represents the seven
stars of the constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and is considered "north." Meridies
represents the position of the sun at midpoint, or midday"south" in the Northern
Hemisphere. Ortus arrives from the Greek orthos, a technical, scientific root meaning
"straight," or "right." Ortive is derived from ortiv-us, and ortus, or "rising," suggesting that
ortus is "east." Ortive also bears mathematical significance: the phrase "numeration ortive"
signifies "that part of arithmetic which deals with multiplication, division" as distinguished
from "numeration original," which represents addition and subtraction. Publicius entitles the
section on the workings of memory wheels as "The Facilitation of the Memory by the Addition
of Letters." Occasus derives from occident-em, "setting," and signifies a westerly "falling,
going down." The related term occasion represents "falling towards, juncture, opportunity,
cause. I.1. A falling together or juncture of circumstances favourable or suitable to an end or
purpose, an opportunity. An opportunity of attackinga 'handle' against a person. II.5. A
juncture of circumstances requiring or calling for an action; necessity or need arising from
circumstances" (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. occasion). Occasion thus signified an
opportunity for piercing or cutting, by arrow, hoe, surgeon's knife, or builder's shovel.
A provocative example of generative combinatorics at the court of Urbino has been proposed 21
by David King, who suggests that the engraving on an astrolabe commissioned by
Regiomontanus for Cardinal Bessarion in 1462 offers a means to decode Piero's Flagellation
("The Geometry of Piero's Flagellation of Christ and the Geometry of the Epigram on the
Astrolabe of Regiomontanus that Inspired it," presented October 11, 2006 at the First
International Conference of the Centro Internazionale di Studi "Urbino e la Prospettiva").
King holds that the individual characters in an engraving on the astrolabe, when recombined,
reference primary characters in the painting: these protagonists represent, in turn, multiple
personagescontemporary and historicalas stand-ins for various narratives and "lessons."
Although modern scholarship might prefer a watertight demonstration of King's thesis,
especially seeing that the letters in the (Latin) engraving could generate any number of
names, the essence of his argument is sensible. In a culture given to codifying messages as
entertainment and self-preservation, the multiplicity of significances in a work of art is
complementary to the mnemonic practices and mechanical devices used at the time. Like the
studioli in general, this points to Piero's Flagellation as a work of and for meditation, with
manynot onepertinent interpretations.
EC18
In addition to dignified public and private edifices, a 22

Fig. 4.42. Triple hoist mechanism
quattrocento architect such as di Giorgio was called on to carved by Ambrogio Barrocci after
design theatrical machinery and temporary constructs drawing by Francesco di Giorgio.
for such civic celebrations as the wedding of Duke

Federico's second daughter, Elisabetta, to Roberto Malatesta, the son of Sigismondo (d. 1468).
Pernis describes the elaborate procession of June 25, 1475: "Federico and Isabetta entered
Rimini by the Porta di San Bartolo, an ancient Roman triumphal arch. Positioned at the top of
the arch were men dressed as Romans, reciting poetry as Federico and Isabetta entered. They
proceeded to Piazza del Foro, along a street covered with carpets. A second arch had been
constructed at the entrance to the square at the very spot where Caesar himself stopped to
address his soldiers. From this arch as well, men dressed as ancient Roman senators, and
consuls recited poetry. They were accompanied by 'Diana' and her nymphs, 'Caesar' holding a
book and 'Hercules' with a mace. In the center stood a throne covered with lavish fabrics.
When Federico arrived, the 'Romans' stood and 'Caesar' gestured to the empty throne, as if
inviting the Lord of Urbino, a 15th-century combination of Hercules and Caesar, to be seated.
A third arch supported a choir of singing angels on a rotating platform" (Pernis and Adams,
Montefeltro and Malatesta, 55). The choreography of this celebration reflects an intricate
interplay of private and communal memory, in which urban architecture provided a theater
for events that augured the health of a city and its citizens. On this specific occasion,
reconciliation of the neighboring Montefeltro and Malatesta families benefited both Urbino
and Rimini. Recalling the ancient Roman triumphal procession, the theatrical architecture
incorporated ancient and permanent with temporary and fantastic constructsincluding
masques, rotating stages, and such edible confections as cakes "in the shape of a fountain, the
Arch of Augustus, Castel Sismondo, and the [ideal] design of the Tempio
Malatestiano" (Montefeltro and Malatesta, 57). Such an event (and the machinery it required)
offered ample opportunity for an architect to display his "careful foresight" and the
resourcefulness of his "highly trained intelligence," as Vitruvius relates in his preface to the
final book of De architectura.
EC19
The transparent relation between bodies and buildings, 23

as represented by Francesco di Giorgio. For Alberti, human and building profiles.
buildingslike bodily habitsunavoidably express the To chapter 4, paragraph 68
character of their patrons. Through his familiarity with
the dwellings of Federico and Sigismondo, Alberti appears to have based his
recommendations for the palaces of a prince and tyrant quite literally on the respective
personalities of the two condottieri: "A royal palace [such as Federico's palace at Urbino]
should be sited in the city center, should be of easy access, and should be gracefully decorated,
elegant, and refined, rather than ostentatious. But that of a tyrant, being [like Sigismondo's] a
fortress rather than a house, should be positioned where it is neither inside nor outside the

city. Further, whereas a royal dwelling might be sited next to a showground, a temple, or the
houses of noblemen, that of a tyrant should be set well back on all sides from any
buildings" (Alberti, Art of Building, 5.3.121).
EC20
Piazza del Foro, Rimini. During the Malatesta- 24

Fig. 4.48. Piazza del Foro, Rimini.
Montefeltro wedding in 1475, the ceremonial movement To chapter 4, paragraph 75
of the participants and audience among the urban
landmarks of Rimini plied a new weave of communal memory into the city's fabric.
"Patterned movement, as in a procession, is a basic memory foundation; it 'places' us
individually within a community as an imago agens within a memory location. The principles
governing these processions are mnemonically sound: they consist of images moving within
locations, locations spaced distinctly apart and in a clear relationship to one another . . .
having the qualities that make them both strike and fix in the mind. Participant and audience
together make up these processions, and remember them viscerally, the way we remember
how to ride a bicycle, or how to dance" (Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 5457). With its
symbolic references, the Montefeltro-Malatesta marriage procession exemplifies an act of
communal remembering and forgetting engineered by poets, artists, and architects. As the
ceremony proceeded through the city streets, ancient heroes were called on to sweep aside
centuries of enmity: the marriage of the Houses of Malatesta and Montefeltro also represented
the union of Rimini and Urbino.
EC21
Fig. 5.4 The Madonna of Senigallia, Fig. 5.5. Detail from Piero della
after Piero della Francesca. Francesca's Brera Altarpiece.
Fig. 5.6. Glass mirror and vessels,

Urbino studiolo.
In Piero della Francesca's Madonna of Senigallia (fig. 5.4) the Christ child is shown wearing a 25
necklace with a coral pendantthe same necklace and pendant depicted in the Brera
Altarpiece (fig. 5.5). Bearing in mind the Jesus-Guidobaldo conflation, it is plausible that the
young prince wore this necklace as a talisman against melancholy, as Ficino would
recommend. Previous to Ficino's interest in the geometric nature of heavenly rays, Alexander
de Ales, an author specifically cited among Federico's philosophical and religious interests

(I.V. #16467: see Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vespasian Memoirs, 102), had considered the
works of Euclid as invaluable theoretical equipment for determining a proportional relation
between terrestrial and purgatorial time (LeGoff, Medieval Imagination, 74). The Franciscan
Duns Scotus applied Euclidean geometry to further theological speculation, in proving the
existence of angels (Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture," 262). In the Urbino studiolo, Scotus's
portrait is in the immediate vicinity of Euclid's. In a related matter, perhaps, the rectangular
mirror suspended in the Urbino studiolo evokes Prudence, like the round mirror at Gubbio.
However, the Urbino mirror (fig. 5.6) has one particularly marvelous characteristic: it is
transparent. The light "refracted" by the "material" of the mirror distorts the fluting of the
pilaster seen behind. If this object is indeed a mirror, it is not of polished metal, stone, or even
foil-backed Venetian glass. Rather, it appears to be made of a crystalline substance similar to
that of a geometric figure suspended in the late quattrocento portrait of Fra Luca Pacioli,
painted by Jacopo de' Barbari. The practice of scrying, or crystal-gazing, would be practiced by
the English magus John Dee (and the charlatan Edward Kelley) after Dee's visit to Urbino in
1563 and the publication of his Mathematicall Praeface to Euclid's Elements. Is it possible,
then, that the mirror-tablet at Urbino reflects the speculative aspect of Prudence, providing a
key to divinatory practices by Federico's astrologers?
EC22
Fig. 6.14. Detail of The Effects of Fig. 6.15. Cabinet with hunting
Good Government. horn, Gubbio studiolo.
Fig. 6.16. Tau-shaped tuning key,

Gubbio studiolo.
The Franciscan monk San Bernardino da Siena (13801444), canonized in 1450 by Pope 26
Nicholas V, delivered sermons in the vernacular that frequently employed imagery from well-
known works of art. In 1427, Bernardino used frescoes painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti to
illustrate a series of homilies preached to lay audiences in the Campo di Siena (Starn,
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 74). Located in the Sala dei Nove of Siena's Palazzo Pubblico,
Lorenzetti's cycle (133840) includes allegories of "The Good City Republic" and "The City-
State under Tyranny," separated by "The Virtues of Good Government." As its central image,
"The Virtues" features personifications of Justice and the Virtues as an allegory for the city's
health. The fruits of just and virtuous government are represented in "The Good City
Republic," in which peace and prosperity are reflected in the bustle of artisans and merchants,
a wedding ceremony, and ongoing architectural construction (fig. 6.14). By contrast, without
justice and its attendant virtues, citizens are faced with "The City-State under Tyranny," a

dystopia of misery and oppression. Several items in the Gubbio studiolo underscore
Montefeltro devotion to the Franciscans. Raggio (Gubbio Studiolo, 141) has pointed out the
similarity between the hunting horn and a horn believed to have belonged to St. Francis (fig.
6.15). The harp's tuning key, hung from its own hook, is a likely reference to the Franciscan
tau as well as an alphamnemonic for the letter "T" (fig. 6.16).
EC23
Fig. 6.23. Triple hoist mechanism Fig. 6.24. "Unfinished" faade of

carving. Urbino's ducal palace.
Fig. 6.25. The second "wing" of the Fig. 6.26. Sala del Conversazione.
entry faade. To chapter 6, paragraph 22
In his dedication page for the Divina proportione (1497/1509), Fra Luca Pacioli praises 27
Federico da Montefeltro for the machines and military instruments represented in the divine
stone(s) of his dignified palace (degno palao). Like di Giorgio, who emphasized the
importance of the quadrivium for architecture, Pacioli declared that the defense of a republic
was not possible without knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, and proportion, since all artillery
instruments and military machines are the products of the discipline of mathematics.
Included (by name) in Pacioli's dedication are the masons, stonecutters, and sculptors from
his hometown of Borgo San Sepolcroa town not far from Urbino that was birthplace also to
his mentor, Piero della Francesca. The evenings described by Castiglione in The Book of the
Courtier took place in the Sala della Conversazione (fig. 6.26), located behind the two large
windows at left, on the piano nobile.
EC24
The encomium for Cardinal Bessarion's portrait (fig. 28

Fig. 6.54. Cardinal Bessarion,
6.54) states: "Bessarioni, Graeci Latini[que] conventus among the illustrious men in the
pacificatori, ob summam gravitatem doctrinaeq[ue] south wall of the Urbino studiolo.
excellentiam, Fed[ericus] amico sapientiss[imo] optimoq
[ue] posuit" (To Bessarion, the peacemaker of the Greco-
Latin Conference, and wisest and best of friends, for his outstanding authority and excellence
of teaching, Federico placed this) (Cheles, Studiolo of Urbino, 95). In 1438, Bessarion arrived
in Italy with his teacher, Gemisthus Plethon, to participate in the Greco-Latin Conference.
Unlike Pletho, Bessarion remained in Italy (although Plethon eventually returned to Italy,

posthumously). Curious note: a portrait of Bessarion at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice is
protected by a special encasement designed by the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa (190678).
Technically, Bessarion was a man from Byzantium who arrived in Venice by way of Greece. In
his epitaph, Scarpa described himself by these very words (Zambonini, "Process and Theme in
the Work of Carlo Scarpa").
EC25
Fig. 6.59. Bench along palace Fig. 6.60. Palace bench, continued.
faade. To chapter 6, paragraph 101
Fig. 6.61. Portrait of Fra Luca Fig. 6.62. The 72-sided

Pacioli. Hebdomicontadissaedron.
In the second part of Divina proportione, Fra Luca Pacioli urges that geometric proportions 29
are essential to ensure the meaningful ornamentation of buildings with finely carved stone.
Why, one might wonder, were exactly 72 tablets set into the faade of the ducal palace? This is
especially curious because the bench does not terminate within the embrace of the "winged"
entry court but continues for a distance around the corner, as if to fulfill a preconceived
program. In the same years that Francesco di Giorgio was employed at Urbino, Piero della
Francesca composed the Tractatus de quinque corporibus regularibus, a treatise dedicated to
Prince Guidobaldo that instructs its reader on the geometric construction of the regular (so-
called Platonic) solids. In these figures all faces (and their angles) are equivalent, as are the
angles at which all faces meet. Consequently, the Platonic solids represent "the dice of the
universe," as Anne Tyng has observed; "with an equal chance of landing on any face . . . [they]
are the basis of all the infinite variety of natural or synthetic matter" ("In Response," 81). Of
the five such solids that exist, four symbolically represent the terrestrial elements. "The cube,
rising from a quadrangular base, gives an impression of stability and is therefore identified
with the earth; the octahedron, suspended between two opposite points and turned as on a
lathe, conveys an image of great mobility, like the air; the icosahedron has the greatest number
of sides, and its globular form most closely resembles a drop of water; the tetrahedron's
pointed form suggests fire" (Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture," 257).
The fifth regular solid "discovered" by the ancient Greeks, the dodecahedron, represented the 30
ether, or quintessence, of the cosmos, is composed of 12 pentagonal faces with exterior angles
of 72 degrees. Pacioli "borrowed" Piero's treatise, appending an Italian translation to his own
Divina proportione. In Jacopo de' Barbari's portrait of Pacioli (fig. 6.61), a wooden
dodecahedron rests on a treatise the friar had dedicated to Duke Guidobaldo in 1494, the

Suma de arithmetica geometria proportione et proportionalita. Pacioli describes the

dodecahedron as the symbol of the quintessence because, as Prez-Gmez observes , "its
construction subsumes the other four and because it must be constructed from the 'divine
proportion,' the golden-section ratio that is inherent in the pentagonal faces of the
solid" ("Glass Architecture," 266). Astrophysicists and cosmologists have resorted to the term
quintessence to describe the mysterious "dark matter" that appears to be accelerating the
expansion of the universe. This is a fitting nomenclature, given that Pacioli defined the
quintessence as a "celestial virtue which sustains [the other essences] in their being" ("Glass
Architecture," 266).
Returning to the golden section (or mean): this ratio yields the irrational "golden number" 31
approaching, but never reaching 0.618by a sequence of numbers known as the Fibonacci
series. "This sequence [is] generated arithmetically by adding the two previous numbers in
the series: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 . . ." (Prez-Gmez, "Piero's Lesson or the Ubiquitous Centre," 21).
For example, 21 + 34 = 55 and 34/55 = 0.618. Although generally attributed to Leonardo
Pisano, il Figlio di (son of) Bonacci, this proportion is also found in the measurements of the
Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25): 2.5 cubits long by 1.5 cubits wide and high (1.5/2.5 = 0.6). It
is possible to close-pack the three simple solidsthe tetrahedron, octahedron, and cube (all
related by the square root of 22)inside a cube. Using the divine proportion, a dodecahedron
may be built-out from this cube. Similarly, an icosahedron may be constructed inside the
octahedron, at the concentric heart of the entire ensemble. The divine proportion thus bridges
between the three "simple" solids and the two "complex" solids. See Tyng, "Geometric
Extensions," 81.
There is another more prominently displayed polygonal solid in de' Barbari's portrait. 32
Fabricated from glass and suspended from a wire, the 26-sided icosahexahedron is one of two
geometric solids Pacioli declares as being important for architects (Divina proportione, 1.53,
54). The other, a hebdomicontadissaedron, represented in the treatise by Leonardo da Vinci,
consists of 72 faces, with each hemisphere subdivided into three tiers of 12 faces (fig. 6.62: pl.
39, entitled the Septuagintaduarum basium vacuum). Pacioli's description of this figure
concludes in a lengthy digression on its architectural usefulness for constructing vaults and
domes, referring the reader to the Roman Pantheon and the contemporary Santa Maria delle
Grazie in Milan (Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture," 268). Curiously, the original version of
Pacioli's treatise, dedicated to Duke Lodovico Sforza in 1497, was composed of 71 chapters,
concluding with its colophon and the appendix of Leonardo's diagrams. Might Pacioli have
used the 72 tablets as a mnemonic stratagem for the Divina proportione? It would have been
consistent with late quattrocento thought-craft, since it was a number that was very much "in
the air."
This is particularly true at Urbino, in light of both the Montefeltro court's patronage of 33
scholars who compared and conflated Judeo-Christian-Islamic ideas and its fascination with
such "subtle" and "recondite" philosophers as Duns Scotus and Pietro d'Abano, who figure

prominently in the studiolo, and also with such contemporary philosophers as Marsilio Ficino
and Pico della Mirandola, whose Seventy-Two Conclusions were later presented in Rome in
an ill-starred attempt to generate dialogue about shared forms of divine wisdom.
Judaism, specifically the Old Testament, offers a font for the number 72. The oldest 34
translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, the Septuagint, received its name from the 72
Jewish scholars who, according to tradition, had performed this translation for Ptolemy II in
the third century bce. This version is still used, untranslated, in Greek Orthodoxy. Moreover,
the kabbalistic practice of the Shemhamphorasch examines the letters comprising chapters
1921 of Exodus 14, which were believed to yield a 72-lettered name of God and 72
permutations, each being the name of an angel. The mental image of 72 angels created by
transliteration prompts a cross-reference to a curious observation Prez-Gmez makes about
the Divina proportione: "After commenting on mathematical contributions to the arts of war,
Pacioli continues with a seamless narrative on the importance of mathematics in the subtle
theological speculations of Duns Scotus, who proved the existence of angels through Euclidean
geometry" ("Glass Architecture," 262).
At first glance, the notion of "proving" the existence of angels by geometry may seem 35
extremely abstract, as obscure and obfuscating as alchemy. But if by Neoplatonic belief stars
were considered divine agencies, and if by humanist interpretation the sacred task of the
Roman augur were translated to the role of the Christian priest, then the process of
astrological divination and its place in human affairs is less opaque, at least at the court of
Urbino: it is a cultural absorption of history into a new context, equipping humans to make
decisions in the face of uncertainty. But how do angles prove the existence of angels? As
distinguished from the ancient "images and locations" technique employed by the
Dominicans, the concentric mnemonic wheels of Ramon Llull were calibrated to prove the
existence of God; these were adopted by the Franciscans (such as Duns Scotus) for mnemonic,
pedagogical, and meditational practices. By rotating the wheels to quantifiable angles, one
recombined numbers and letters, generating rhetorical permutations (such as the names of
God), and explaining divine causes for worldly phenomena. It is worth noting that astrolabes
such as those depicted in the Montefeltro studioliwere commonly subdivided into 72 five-
degree gradients for astronomical observation and were among the group of machinae
universitatis employed in medieval education and memory training (Carruthers, Book of
Memory, 252). Slender reeds as these last few thoughts may be, they are consistent with the
syncretic ethos cultivated by the Montefeltro court and the precarious balance it maintained
between spiritual observance and occult speculation.
Other derivations of 72 potentially significant for Urbino: Maria Pernis (Eagle and Elephant, 36
53) has observed that the number 36 (half of 72) was highly significant to the court of Urbino,
figuring prominently in a dream that Battista Sforza had in April 1471. In this dream, the
duchess gave birth to a phoenix, which after 36 days flew toward the sun. The dream was
interpreted as an augur of the birth of a male successor to Federico and became central to

Montefeltro mythology when, in January 1472, Battista Sforza gave birth to Guidobaldo da
Montefeltro, who received his name in appreciation for the divine intercession of Ubaldo,
patron saint of Gubbio. According to Pernis, the number 36 has astrological associations that
"would have been known to Ottaviano. In astrology, the celestial circle was divided into 36
decans, or segments, corresponding in ancient Egypt to ten-day sequences of rising stars."
Manilius, Astronomica, 86, fig. 23 (#I.V. 503, Manilius Boetius). It might also be noted that
there are 36 weeks in a nine-month pregnancy.
EC26
In the mid-14th century, the term counterpoint emerged 37

Fig. 6.66. Albrecht Drer's
to signify a compositional process by which, in general demonstration of perspectival
terms, one deliberately constructed pitch intervals (or composition.
proportions) among separate voices, note by note
(punctus contra punctus). By 1412, in a treatise devoted
to the subject, Prosdacimus de Baldemandis states that counterpoint had become concerned
with melody against melody (cantus contra cantus). In the evolving notation of the musical
score, this meant that a work was conceived "vertically," aligning pitch relations across the
separate staves of multiple voices, as well as "horizontally," with consideration to the path of
each individual melody. On a fundamental level, this secured that a composition could be
appreciated at each frozen instant as well as over time, as it unravels. In a description of
Johannes Tinctoris's musical glossary, composed in 1475, Alfred Mann emphasizes that "when
[Tinctoris] speaks of measurement from point to point, he quite obviously has in mind an
analogy with mathematical concepts, and his formulation suggests indeed the imagination
and draftsmanship of the masters of optical perspective" (Mann, introduction to Johann
Joseph Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum, viii). The orthography of the quattrocento musical score
is akin to the reticulation of the velo, in which a view (prospettiva) was subdivided into
quadrants of information that could more easily be translocated by an artisan from a sketch to
a finished work, as Alberti recommends in De pictura. Although the velo was derived from the
empirical experiments of Brunelleschi, a point well established, there are earlier commonplace
examples of visioning techniques of which Alberti would have been quite aware, such as the
reticulated memory technique described by Hugh of St. Victor. Manifest as a chessboard or
perspectival velo, the grid was already an ancient mnemonic strategy at the conception of the
studioli.

EC27
Fig. 6.77. Order of the Garter, Fig. 6.78. Ceiling of quarters

Gubbio studiolo. reserved for the King of England,
To chapter 6, paragraph 145 in the Urbino ducal palace.
Fig. 6.79. Detail from ceiling of the

King of England's quarters.
The Order of the Garter was particularly significant to Federico, as evident in its frequent and 38
prominent display in both studioli. After his mentor, Francesco Sforza, and his patron,
Ferdinand of Aragon, king of Naples, who had petitioned on the duke's behalf, Federico was
one of the few foreigners to join this exclusive group. Raggio observes that Edward IV was as
pleased to "secure Federico's support for matters needing papal approval" as was Federico to
have received such a distinguished, and exotic, honor (Gubbio Studiolo, 28). Federico's son,
Guidobaldo, would be inducted into the order in 1506. Castiglione was sent to receive the
award in proxy for the duke, and it is during his absence (an example of dissimulation, since
he was in fact present) that the events described in The Book of the Courtier were said to have
occurred. In the Urbino ducal palace, special quarters were designed for the King of England,
decorated with intermingling Ostriches (Montefeltro) and Unicorns (England).
EC28
The selection of a seven-pointed figure for its highly 39

Fig. 6.82. Heptagonal diagram
charged location was not taken lightly, especially after figure at Urbino studiolo.
knowing that Fra Carnivale, a painter in the Urbino To chapter 6, paragraph 156
court, had produced a drawing of an infinitely recursive
octagonal figure whose sepia tones have been interpreted as preparatory for translation into
intarsia. One can imagine a debate during the design of the Urbino studiolo over the
respective merits of a seven- or eight-sided figure. The sevenfold geometric figure evokes
numerical associations with various categories of knowledge, including the virtues and liberal
arts, while its recursive line suggests the interdependence of all seven points, a notion
consistent with the syncretic character of the Urbino court. Such interconnectivity is also
consistent with the ancient astrobiological notion that each of the seven apertures of the
human head was influenced by the seven celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus,
Jupiter, and Saturn) and that the inward flow of these influences gathered in the sensus
communis (common sense), where the human soul was believed to reside. Like the notion of
the vermis, the common sense was a particularly "mobile" topic. While Aristotle and
Alexander of Aphrodisias placed the soul in the arche of the heart, Hippocrates and Plato

located the powers of perception and cognition in the brain. Avicenna, who linked Aristotle's
heart with Plato's brain by the flow of pneuma, associated the common sense with phantasia
in the front region of the brain. Later, Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical investigations
discerned a hollow at the center of the skull that he believed to house the soul.
Contemporaneously, the related notion of the hegemonikon is reflected by Fra Luca Pacioli's
assertion in Divina proportione that the seven orifices of the head enable the human intellect
to engage the external world (Prez-Gmez, "Glass Architecture," 273). Regarded by the Stoic
philosophers (and Leonardo) as a faculty of faculties, the hegemonikon offered a sevenfold
model of the soul, comprising the five senses, a seminal principle (testicles), and the voice
(tongue). The hegemonikon was believed to communicate with these seven parts through the
pneuma, by which it "commands the anatomical mechanism of the body in response to the
world flowing into it from the senses" (Summers, Judgment of Sense, 98). Regarding the
visual pattern of the heptagonal figure at Urbino, it is worth considering Hugh of St. Victor's
thoughts on the mnemonic potentials of geometry. Mary Carruthers relates: "In characterizing
geometry, of all the seven liberal arts the one essential for a wise master-builder, he [Hugh]
calls it 'well-spring of perceptions and source of sayings.' In other words, Hugh understood
geometry, the science of 'forms,' to apply not just to the physical world but also to the
cognitive one, to the fabricating of the schemes and patterns for thinking, for constructing the
buildings of the mind from and within the sedes or locations of remembered 'things': sensus
(perceptions, feelings, attitudes, judgments), dictiones (sayings and speakings), and facta
('events' as stories)" (Craft of Thought, 24). Subsequently, septenary figures preoccupied Pico
della Mirandola (Heptaplus), Giulio Camillo, John Dee, and Joachim Frizius, who wrote an
influential treatise on Rosicrucianism in 1626.
EC29
Fig. 6.83. Bench wheels, Urbino Fig. 6.84. Federico on biga with
studiolo. cardinal virtues.
Wheels. Wheels within wheels. Wheels for tracing the paths of stars and the wandering 40
planets. Surgical wheels. Pedagogical wheels. Wheels for hoisting and building, for memory
and rhetorical invention. Wheels of fortune. What other types of movement do the wheels at
Urbino evoke? Equipped with hubs (as if for axles), the bench legs in the Urbino studiolo
prompt several associations. In Cristofero Landino's Disputationes camaldulensis, the
character of Lorenzo de' Medici refers to the metaphor of the bigaa wagon drawn by two
horses (representing mind and body)in his assertion that a leader should not abandon his
responsibilities of governance and arms for speculative pursuits. Lorenzo then cites Federico
as a leader who embodies a perfect synthesis of these desired qualities (Garin, ed., Prosatori
latini, 763). Wagon wheels also conjure Petrarch's trionfi and the processional imagery

depicted in the Sala dei Mesi of the d'Este, and Piero della Francesca's triumphal diptych of
Federico and Battista (ca. 1472), in which the duke and duchess ride on horse- and unicorn-
drawn chariots (fig. 6.84). The presence of the virtues in Piero's diptych, in which Federico is
accompanied by the cardinal virtues while Battista Sforza is attended by the theological
virtues, reflects a figural tradition in which virt and fortuna are represented at times as allies
and at others as adversaries. Their presence points also to a well-known Ciceronian phrase
"Duce virtute comite Fortuna" (Fortune follows the tracks of Virtue), whose message is quite
literally ingrained in the architecture of the studioli (Cicero Ad familiares 10.3, I.V.
#CLVIII.27).
EC30
Among its numerous associations, the image of a caged 41

Fig. 6.89. Federico's helmet and
bird also resonates with the Neoplatonist view of the scepter, Gubbio studiolo.
body as a temporary "cage" for the immortal soul, a To chapter 6, paragraph 165
notion shared by Leonardo da Vinci and Jacobus
Publicius, who writes: "Buried in a dark prison through contact with this corporeal mass,
memory is in need of new precepts and the supports of medical art, so that the portion of light
has been taken away from her by union with the fleeting and fragile body, she will begin by
means of new precepts and practice to shine far and wide with her accustomed light and
former radiance" (Art of Memory, 10). By exercising the memory with "new precepts" and
"medical art," Publicius and Marsilio Ficino believed, the soul was enabled to transcend its
mortal coil and contemplate absolute beauty, as Diotima asserts in Plato's Symposium, and
Pietro Bembo exhorts at the conclusion of Castiglione's Book of the Courtier. According to
Ficino, "This is in fact what our dear Plato meant in the Timaeus, when he said that the soul,
in frequent and intense contemplation of the divine, grows on such nourishment and becomes
so powerful that it departs the body, and its body, left behind, seems to dissolve. It is as if it
abandoned its bodily nature, fleeing sometimes with great agitation, and sometimes with
none at all" (Book of Life, 1.4.7).

Encomia for the Illustrious Men in the Urbino Studiolo
From Luciano Cheles, The Studiolo of Urbino, app. A, 9395. (Translations only)
North Wall
Illustrious men at north wall of

Urbino studiolo.
Plato [Platoni Atheniensi]
"To Plato of Athens, most famous high priest of human and divine philosophy, Federico
dedicated this out of reverence."
Aristotle [Aristoteli Stagiritae]
"To Aristotle of Stagira, for the philosophy handed down in the proper and exact manner,
Federico placed this out of gratitude."
Ptolemy [Claudio Ptolomeo Alexandrino]
"To Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria, for his precise measurement of the stars, and
because he imposed lines on the [E]arth, for his observations and everlasting toil
Federico gave this."
Boethius [L Boetio]
"To Boethius, on account of whose treatises the Latins do not feel the lack of the
productions of Varro's leisure, Prince Federico of Urbino placed this."
Gregory the Great [Gregorio]
"To Gregory, taken up to Heaven, for his holy habits and the well-known elegance of his
works, mindful Christian gratitude placed this."
St. Jerome [Hieronymo]
"To Jerome, because he expressed the precepts of the Christian faith with learning and
elegance, Federico placed this for the sake of eternity."
St. Ambrose [Ambrosio]
"To Ambrose, for spurning the emblems of consular office, for adopting the name of
Christianity, and adorning it with the beauty of Latin speech, Federico placed this."
St. Augustine [Augustino]
"To Augustine, for his sublime doctrine and for his distinguished search for celestial
words/virtues, his well-educated descendants caused this to be put up."

Architecture and Memory Encomia for the Illustrious Men in the Urbino Studiolo Robert Kirkbride
East Wall
Illustrious men at east wall of

Urbino studiolo.
Cicero [Marco Tullio Ciceroni]
"To Marcus Tullius Cicero, proclaimed Father of his Country, for the variety of his
learned activities and his command of eloquence, Duke Federico dedicated this out of
(Cicero's) persuasiveness."
Seneca [Annaeo Sanecae Cordubensi]
"To Annaeus Seneca of Cordoba, by whose precepts the spirit is freed from worries and
calm cultivated, Federico erected this."
Homer [Homero Smirnaeo]
"To Homer of Smyrna, whose poetry, on account of the divine variety of its teachings, has
been admired by every age, and equaled by no one afterwards, gratitude placed this."
Virgil [Puplio Vergilio Maroni Mantuano]
"To Publius Virgio Maro of Mantua, for making famous the origins of the Romans in
heroic verses, and for the divinity of his poetry of Empire, Federico dedicated this to his
sublime madness."
Moses the Jew [Moysae Judaeo]
"To Moses the Jew, for saving the people and providing them with divine laws, Christian
posterity placed this."
Solomon [Solomoni]
"To Solomon, a divine man, because of his great name for wisdom Federico placed this."
St. Thomas Aquinas [Thomae Aquinati]
"To Thomas Aquinas, whose divinity was adorned with philosophical and theological
treatises, (Federico) dedicated this for his outstanding virtue."
Duns Scotus [Scoto]
"To Duns Scotus, most shrewd doctor, for his sublime thoughts and most diligent
investigations of heavenly words/virtues, Federico set this up."

South Wall
Illustrious men at south wall of

Urbino studiolo.
Euclid [Euclidi Megarensi]
"To Euclid of Megara, because he grasped the spaces of the [E]arth by means of lines and
the compass, Federico gave this for a most precise invention."
Vittorino da Feltre [Victorino Feltrensi]
"To Vittorino of Feltre, very holy teacher, for communicating culture by his writings and
example, Federico placed this."
Solon [Soloni]
"To Solon, because he handed down the laws of the Athenians, most holy source of the
Tables of the Romans, Federico placed this out of enthusiasm for educating his citizens
well."
Bartolus of Sassoferato [Bartholo Sentinati]
"To Bartolus of Sassoferrato, very acute and just interpreter of the laws, Federico placed
this in accordance with his merit and justice."
Pope Pius II [Pio II Pontifici]
"To Pope Pius II, because he increased his realms by war and adorned it with the marks
of eloquence, Federico set this up to his magnanimity and unceasing labours."
Bessarion [Bessarioni]
"To Bessarion, the peace-maker of the Graeco-Latin Conference, and wisest and best of
friends, for his outstanding authority and excellence of teaching, Federico placed this."
Albertus Magnus [Alberto Magno]
"To Albertus Magnus, because he investigated the natural phenomena in emulation of

Aristotle, in immense volumes, as a most holy concern for posterity Federico set this up
for one who deserved it well."
Pope Sixtus IV [Xysto IIII Pontifici Maximo]
"To Pope Sixtus IV, because of his knowledge of philosophy and theology when he
became Pope, (Federico) dedicated this to his undying kindness."

West Wall
Illustrious men at west wall of

Urbino studiolo.
Hippocrates [Hippocratis Coo]
"To Hippocrates of Cos, because he gave health to mankind and set it out in his
aphorisms, the health of a fortunate posterity dedicates this."
Pietro d'Abano [Petro Apono]
"To Pietro of Abano, the most fair-minded judge of physicians, on account of his
distinguished study of the more recondite disciplines, Federico caused this to be erected."
Dante Alighieri [Danti Antignio]
"To Dante Alighieri, who deserves well on account of the verses he produced and the
poetry he wrote for the people, with diverse learning, this was set up."
Petrarch [Petrarchae]
"To Petrarch, who deserved well for his very keen intellect and the most delightful candor
of his learned activities, the merry playfulness of posterity placed this."

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About the Author
Robert Kirkbride is director of the architectural design firm studio 'patafisico and associate 1
professor of product design at Parsons The New School for Design. His investigations center
on the mutual influences of thinking and making, appearing in Vogue, The New York Times,
Chora 4, Mark Magazine, Metropolis, and the film XX/XY. He has been a visiting scholar at
the Canadian Centre for Architecture and architect-in-residence at the Bogliasco Foundation
in Genoa, Italy, and is an editorial board member of the Italian-based Nexus Network Journal
and commissioning editor for Alphabet City. His dissertation on architecture and memory,
completed at McGill University, received the Gutenberg-e Prize from the American Historical
Association and is the subject of the present work. He lives in New York City with his wife,
composer Melissa Grey.

Architecture and Memory

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Architecture and Memory Robert Kirkbride

The Navigational Icon

The navigational icon for this e-publication is a 4

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Cover and Preamble

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Owing to their comprehensive iconographic programswhich encompass the seven liberal 2

Architecturally, the Urbino and Gubbio studioli are 3

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In the studioli this transformation in visuality may be 7

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From a post-daguerreotype point of view, one might 8

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Indice Vecchio (abbreviated as "I.V."), a document that offers a bibliographical sketch of

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For a rounder appreciation of prudence (and cleverness) in the quattrocento mind, an 17

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The Urbino and Gubbio Studioli: Their Contents,

Urbino Studiolo Gubbio Studiolo

At first glance, the Urbino and Gubbio studioli appear 1

Fig. 2.1. Battista Sforza and

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2.1 The Urbino Studiolo: A Visitor's Perspective

Urbino Day Fig. 2.2. The city of Urbino and the

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Although historically useful, this description by the late-sixteenth-century biographer

Fig. 2.5. View of ceiling and gallery

FEDERICVS . MONFELTRIVS . DVX . VURBINI . MONTISFERETRI . AC .

[Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, Count of San Leo and Durante,

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Having completed one (or perhaps two) further 9

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Fig. 2.19. Charity, west wall, Urbino

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Fig. 2.22. Detail of chain mail, Fig. 2.23. Southeast corner of

Fig. 2.24. Civic space at the center

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Fig. 2.27. Unicursal octagonal Fig. 2.28. Heptagonal floral pattern

Fig. 2.29. Operable intarsia panels

Fig. 2.32. Bridle, north wall, Urbino

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Above the intarsia of the west wall, a large window 19

2.2 The Gubbio Studiolo

Although secondary in political importance to Urbino, 21

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Gubbio Studiolo Studioli Slideshow

Fig. 2.43. Southwest wall, Gubbio

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You see how the eternal students of the Venerable Mother

Fig. 2.48. Lectern and opened

Every man's last day is fixed

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For all mankind. But by their deeds to make

Considered in this light, the composure of the Gubbio 28

A comparison with "hooked" items at Urbino provokes 30

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Fig. 2.53. Exterior faade of Gubbio

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2.3 A Phenomenological Reading of the Studioli