Urbino

Urbino, an ancient town of Central Italy, in the province of Pesaro and Urbino, nestling among wooded hills, between the rivers Foglia and Metauro, remote from the highways of commerce. The nearest station, Faro (97 miles by rail SE. of Bologna), is 29 miles away. It is a town of narrow, tortuous streets, with an archbishop's cathedral and other churches; a magnificent ducal palace (1447; restored, and now housing the fine art institution); a free university, dating from 1564, but now attracting only eighty students; and the house in which Raphael was born, now the town museum. Cheese, silk, pins, and some majolica ware are manufactured, but not the majolica for which the place was famous for a century and a half after 1475 (see MAJOLICA). Urbino, anciently the Urbinum Hortense of Umbria, was a municipium under the Romans and was the seat of a line of independent dukes from 1474 to 1631. On the death then of the last duke, Urban VIII. took possession of the duchy as a vacant fief; and it belonged to the Papal States till 1860, when it became part of the kingdom of Italy. Pop. 5087.