CIRCA 1509-1515, PROBABLY URBINO

The arms are for Francesco Maria I della Rovere (1490-1538), Duke of Urbino, and his wife Eleonora Gonzaga (1493-1550). Francesco succeeded his uncle, Guidubaldo da Montefeltro, as duke on his uncle’s death in 1508, and married Eleonora Gonzaga the following year. Eleonora was the daughter of Francesco II, Marquess of Mantua and Isabella d’Este (1474-1539), one of the most active and important art collectors and patrons of 16th century Italy. Although Francesco and Eleonora had been betrothed since 1505, presumably their arms would not have been impaled until their marriage, suggesting a terminus post quem of 1509 for this charger. Francesco’s fortunes changed when he disobeyed a papal command to head an army to France. He took refuge in Mantua, but in 1516 temporarily lost his duchy to the new pope’s nephew, Lorenzo de Medici.

For a later charger, without the Gonzaga arms, see Claudio Paolinelli, ‘L’Aquila e la Quercia. Maioliche al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino’, in Raphael Ware, I colori del Rinascimento, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, October 2019 – April 2020 Exhibition Catalogue, Turin, 2019, p. 25, fig. 28. Palinelli discusses armorial maiolica with the Montefeltro and della Rovere arms, as well as pieces discovered in excavations at the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino.