The National Gallery of the Marche contains a vast number of art works which are on show to the public. These include paintings and sculptures dating back to the 13th through to the 18th century; ceramics; coins; drawings and some furnishings, to which we can add the “fixtures” of Urbino’s Ducal Palace. The museum’s prestige is linked in everybody’s minds to the absolute masterpieces of the Renaissance that are part of its 15th-century core. To name but a few, we could mention the “Flagellation”, the “Madonna of Senigallia” (Piero della Francesca) the “Ideal City” (central-Italian painter, previously attributed to L. Laurana), and the “Portrait of a Gentlewoman” known as “La Muta” (Raphael).
It is to be stressed that if, on one hand, the Gallery has increased in size over time and in line with the restoration of the palace, the museum layout has followed a dual path: on one hand, it capitalises on the Renaissance architecture of the spaces, using art works from the same period and from the palace’s history, while on the other, through the works that mainly come from the Marche region, it records artistic developments with regard to the national sphere.
As well as the works from the area, the Gallery also contains an important collection of paintings dating from the 13th to the 17th centuries and two Volponi Collections, donated by the Volponi family from Urbino in 1991 and 2003.
The works in the National Gallery of the Marche are shown in the rooms on the first and second floors.
On the ground floor, in the room next to the Duke’s Library, the 70 stone tiles used to create the “Frieze of the Art of War,” sculpted from designs by Roberto Valturio and Francesco di Giorgio Martini are also exhibited.