/Rethinking the Montefeltro Diptych

The Rulers

The most powerful and influential family in Renaissance Florence was the Medici. With the founding of the Medici Bank in 1397, they established themselves not only as financial titans but as the de facto rulers of Florence. Their wealth granted them control over the city's political machinery, deep influence within the Church, and - perhaps most enduringly - an unmatched legacy as patrons of the arts. It was under their sponsorship that many masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance came into being. From Donatello's David to Botticelli's Birth of Venus, the Medici name is inseparable from the birth of modern art.

To the east, nestled in the Apennines, was another beacon of Renaissance culture: the Duchy of Urbino. Its ruler, Federico da Montefeltro, earned widespread respect as a brilliant condottiero - a commander-for-hire in the complex and ever-shifting world of Italian warfare. But Federico was more than a soldier. He was a voracious reader, a cultivated thinker, and a patron whose court attracted artists, scholars, and architects. Among those who would pass through Urbino were Raphael, Titian, and the painter of our focus: Piero della Francesca. Federico fashioned himself as the ideal Renaissance prince - a ruler of virtue, wisdom, and magnanimity. In many ways, he embodied the values the Medici promoted. His court was smaller, but no less sophisticated.

The Diptych

Piero della Francesca's Diptych of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza is one of the most iconic portraits of the 15th century. The work consists of two wooden panels, each bearing the profile of a figure. On the right, we see Federico. On the left, his wife, Battista. They face one another, suspended in a flat landscape that stretches endlessly behind them - a symbol, perhaps, of the lands they ruled and the legacy they intended to leave behind.

The choice to depict Federico's left profile was not arbitrary. His right side had been horribly disfigured in a jousting accident: he lost his right eye and part of the bridge of his nose. Surgeons of the time performed a crude but clever procedure - removing the remaining bridge of his nose to expand his field of vision in his remaining eye. This gave him his signature hook-nosed silhouette, instantly recognizable in Renaissance portraiture. It also allowed him to continue serving as a general. In a society obsessed with appearances, Federico made his wound into an emblem of resilience. He chose how the world would see him - and in doing so, concealed what he didn't want them to see.

Another subtle but striking detail is the distinct outward curve of his upper spine, visible even through the heavy fabric of his ornate crimson robe. Art historians now believe Federico suffered from thoracic hyperkyphosis, a curvature likely brought on by years of wearing armor and riding into battle. Even this deformity is integrated into the portrait with grace. Piero's painting doesn't hide the costs of Federico's military life, but it aestheticizes them - folding injury into identity.

Opposite him is Battista Sforza, daughter of the powerful Sforza family of Milan. Their marriage was arranged by her uncle, Francesco Sforza, but by all accounts, the union was affectionate and devoted. Federico spoke of her tenderly, calling her "the delight of both my public and my private hours." But their time together was brief. After twelve years of marriage, Battista died in 1472, likely due to complications from childbirth. In her portrait, her skin is pale and ghostly, a visual elegy to her passing. Her features are serene, idealized. Piero has captured not just her likeness, but her absence - she is already a memory.

Most scholars agree that Federico commissioned the diptych as a personal tribute to his late wife. But art historian Michelle Marder Kamhi has proposed an alternative interpretation. She suggests the work may have been a gift from Lorenzo de' Medici, both to honor Federico's military campaign in Volterra and to offer condolences for Battista's death. The war over Volterra's alum mines - a resource critical for Florence's textile industry - had recently concluded, with Federico leading Florentine forces to victory. The diptych, Kamhi argues, may have served as both a reward and a gesture of sympathy, explaining why the reverse side of the panels glorifies Federico's triumphs rather than Battista's memory.

It's a compelling theory. Given the emotional devastation of Battista's death, would Federico truly have commissioned a piece that celebrated his own military accomplishments? While Renaissance patrons were no strangers to self-glorification - some even had themselves painted alongside the Virgin or Christ - there's something off-kilter about the tone of the diptych if viewed strictly as a mourning piece. Kamhi's reading complicates the image: perhaps this was not a personal act of remembrance, but a political gift, crafted with layers of meaning.

The Assassination

Beneath the surface of the Renaissance's gilded paintings and humanist rhetoric, politics remained brutal. Nowhere was this clearer than in the conflict between Lorenzo de' Medici and Pope Sixtus IV. The word nepotism comes from nepos, Latin for "nephew," and Sixtus made a mission of enriching his own. He appointed six of them to key religious and political roles, transforming the papacy into a family enterprise. Among them was Girolamo Riario, who the Pope attempted to install as ruler of Imola - an important town between Florence and Venice.

When the Medici Bank refused to finance the Pope's acquisition of Imola, Sixtus turned instead to the Pazzi family, the Medici's chief rivals in Florence. He stripped the Medici of their role as papal bankers and began quietly conspiring to remove them from power. What followed was a chilling alliance between the Pope, the Pazzi, and the Salviati family. Their goal: to eliminate the Medici brothers and seize control of Florence.

On April 26, 1478, during High Mass at the Florence Cathedral, the conspirators struck. Giuliano de' Medici was stabbed to death in the middle of the service, collapsing beneath the sacred dome of Brunelleschi's masterpiece. Lorenzo, wounded, managed to escape. The plot failed. The city did not rise in rebellion as the conspirators had hoped. Instead, Florence closed ranks. The conspirators were rounded up and executed, some hanged from the windows of the Palazzo Vecchio.

But the story didn't end there. Pope Sixtus IV excommunicated Lorenzo, seized Medici assets, and forged an alliance with King Ferdinand I of Naples. The king's son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, led an invasion of Florentine territory. And amid this chaos, another man moved silently into position.

The Letter

For centuries, Federico da Montefeltro had escaped suspicion in the Pazzi Conspiracy. He maintained his image as a noble prince, untouched by the corruption and violence that plagued the era. That image shattered in 2004, when historian Marcello Simonetta decrypted a long-overlooked letter stored in the Ubaldini Archive in Urbino.

Using a cipher manual written by his ancestor Cicco Simonetta, a Renaissance cryptographer and political adviser, Simonetta cracked the code and uncovered Federico's hidden hand in the plot. The letter made it clear: Federico had allied himself with the conspirators, committing 600 troops to support the assault on Florence. More damning still, he expressed impatience at delays in the assassination and gratitude to the Pope for a gold chain given to his son - a thinly veiled bribe for his loyalty.

This was no reluctant participant. Federico was deeply embedded in the conspiracy. He wasn't merely waiting for the outcome - he was preparing to invade Florence once the Medici were dead.

The revelation stunned art historians and scholars alike. For so long, Federico had been considered one of the era's "good" rulers - a patron of learning, justice, and beauty. But here was evidence of a calculated betrayal. Behind the calm, intellectual façade was a man just as power-hungry and ruthless as the world he inhabited.

The Face

The irony is too perfect to ignore. The man who insisted on being painted only from his "good side" - literally - spent centuries hiding the worst side of his ambition. In Piero della Francesca's diptych, Federico da Montefeltro gazes outward with solemn dignity, his scarred face turned away from view. To generations of admirers, he was the embodiment of Renaissance virtue: strong, wise, grieving, noble.

But the truth, uncovered only recently, paints a more complicated picture. Federico was not only a humanist and a patron, but a schemer, ready to betray a friend and ally for power and territory. He cultivated an image of ideal rule, but behind that image was a man playing the long game of politics and self-preservation.

In the end, perhaps this is what made him truly Renaissance: not just his love of learning and beauty, but his mastery of image, perception, and control. He was both the portrait and the mask - Machiavellian before Machiavelli. And in that sense, he remains a figure as timeless as the painting he left behind.