Sarah Dunant
Scholar in Arms
The Light of Italy: The Life and Times of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino
By Jane Stevenson
Apollo 434pp £30
There is a chamber in the ducal palace of Urbino in central Italy with a most impressive ceiling: the insignia of a black eagle sits in the middle of a sun, with painted flames and cherubs’ heads dancing all around. The rest of the chamber is now so painfully bare that it takes a considerable leap of imagination to go back in time to the 1460s and 1470s, when it housed one of the newest and most valuable humanist libraries of the time.
Indeed, the whole ducal palace – then a recently built confection of Venetian Gothic soaring out of the rock face – was stuffed with all manner of treasures. But history is a careless mistress when patronage becomes uncoupled from power, and over the following centuries Urbino, once a Renaissance gem of a city, crumbled gently into neglect and decay. Elements of its former beauty have been recovered now, but in order to appreciate its full glory, we have to resort to the words of historians. In the case of Jane Stevenson’s biography of Federico da Montefeltro, the man largely responsible for creating these wonders, we are also much aided by a host of sumptuous full-page and double-page illustrations.
Federico is a figure well worthy of attention. Born on the wrongish side of the blanket in 1420s (it was a crowded part of the bed at that time in Italy), he became ruler of Urbino in his early twenties after the assassination of his unpopular half-brother. While there
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk