Guidobaldo

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."

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

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.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

On one hand, there is the undertow of 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).

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

Although one should generally refuse that food which "needlessly taxes digestion and so impairs mental activity," a young student — particularly a young condottiere such as Guidobaldo — could not be permitted to develop a finicky palate.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

Note 9: See Pedro Berreguete's official portrait of Federico and Guidobaldo.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

Guidobaldo (1472 – 1508), the legitimate heir to the dukedom, was born months before Bessarion died in Ravenna, en route to France. back

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

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."

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

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.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

Guidobaldo was born in 1472, and the Gubbio studiolo was constructed between 1476 and 1483 (according to Olga Raggio, between 1480 and 1483). back

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

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.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008