A city in the form of a palace

Right from the oldest draft of The Cortegiano Castiglione decided to reserve the introduction or prologue of the text, following the pages of the dedication, for the definition in space and time and of the frame of the dialogue, by means of specifying the historical and geographical coordinates of every scene. Thus we have, before the treatise itself really begins, a codification of the myth of Urbino, the city where the Montefeltro family had its court, and where Baldassarre, arrived in September 1504, and remained involved until 1516.

Castiglione gives shape to this portion of the work by copying the typical structure of the eulogies of cities fashionable in the humanistic and middle ages (from Bonvesin della Riva to Leonardo Bruni and Enea Silvio Piccolomini). The peculiar characteristics of the genre induced him, in particular, to organise the celebration in steps, each one respectively reserved for the celebration of the geography, history, politics and institutions of the state of the Montefeltro family. Following the trend normally used in such celebrations, regarding the Duchy of Urbino, he vaunts the fortunate geographic position, the excellent climate, the fertility of the surrounding lands; then he spoke of the continuity of the good princely government; finally he underlined, against the background of the countryside of the Apennines, the unparalleled splendours of “una città in forma di palazzo” (a city shaped like a palace), “secondo la opinione di molti il più bello che in tutta Italia si ritrovi” (in the opinion of many the most beautiful to be found in Italy) (B. Castiglione, Il Cortigiano, edited by A. Quondam, Milan 2002, I, 14).

The palace, work of art of the architects Luciano Laurana and Francesco di Giorgio Martini, is held up in the text as the culmination and conclusion of the exaltation of the Duchy of Urbino and the Montefeltro family: as a perfect example of the ideal residence, both public and private, of the magnificent sovereign. It represents a symbol of the way of life of the prince and court that inhabit it: not closed in a fortress, in a barricaded kingdom, but received in a residence in the heart of the city, itself laid out like a miniature city, complementary to that of its subjects and ideal central hub, manifesting a gentle and liberal exercise of power, free of repressive and menacing connotations.