Piero della Francesca's diptych of the Duke of Urbino and his wife, Batista Sforza, is a unusual portrait.
Federico, the most famous member of the Montefeltro was lord of Urbino for 38 years - 1444 to 1482. He was a successful condottiere (mercenary), a skillful diplomat and a legendary patron of art and literature.
At his court Piero della Francesca wrote on the science of perspective, Francesco di Giorgio Martini wrote his Trattato di architettura ("Treatis on Architecture") and Raphel's father Giovanni Santi wrote his poetical account of the chief artists of his time. Federico's brilliant court, through the descriptions in Baldassare Castiglione's Il Cortegiano ("The Book of the Courtier"), set standards of what characterized a "gentleman" in early modern Europe.
Federico's profile in the diptych portrait reveals the duke's damaged nose and wiry black hair. He is seen posing from his left side so as not to expose the ravages of a jousting accident that wrecked his nose and destroyed his right eye. Battista, his wife, is depicted as pallid even lifeless. Some art historians consider this a posthumous portrait and that she is seen as facing her husband from the afterlife.
Piero della Francesca's wonderful diptych can be found at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
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