oards with doors partly open, showing all sorts of things within in
the usual fashion, and there are four figure panels inserted at
intervals containing the portrait of the duke and the Christian virtues
of Faith, Hope, and Charity which he strove to exemplify in his life. At
one end of the room are two recesses divided by a projecting pier; in
the one to the left the armour of the duke is represented as hanging
piece by piece on the wall, in that on the right is shown his reading
desk, made to turn on a pivot, with books upon it and around, and on the
pier between, a landscape, seen through an arcade with a terrace in
front, upon which are a squirrel and a basket of fruit. Close to the
reading desk is a representation of an organ with a seat in front of it,
upon which is a cushion covered with brocade or cut velvet, which is
most realistic, and on the organ is the name Johan Castellano, which is
supposed to be the name of the intarsiatore, though this name does not
appear in the accounts. The custodian called him a Bergamase, I do not
know on what authority. The designs of the figures are ascribed to
Botticelli, and some of them look as if the ascription might possibly be
correct. The only names of intarsiatori found in the ducal accounts are
Beneivegni da Mercatello, who worked in the Sala del Cambio at Perugia,
and no doubt had to do with the making of the doors, which resemble that
work, and perhaps a Taddeo da Rovigno, the town from which the Olivetan
Fra Sebastian came. Pungileone, however, found a payment of seven
florins in 1473 to "Maestro Giacomo, from Florence, on account of
intarsia for the audience hall." Dennistoun says that this study
contained "arm-chairs encircling a table all mosaicked with tarsia, and
carved by Maestro Giacomo of Florence," but it is now quite bare,
though, fortunately, the tarsie are well preserved. He goes on to say
that "on each compartment of the panelling was the portrait of some
famous author and an appropriate distich," which leads one to suppose
either that his information was inaccurate or that he was referring to
the similar small study on the lower floor, in which Timoteto delle Vite
did some painting.

The duke and his son Guidobaldo were both great builders, and Urbino was
not the only town in which they raised palaces, though the others were
not of so much importance. The names by which they were denominated show
this. It is always the _corte_ at Urbino, at Pesaro it is t