Montefeltro

The Montefeltro were a branch of the lords of Carpegna who, around 1140, took San Leo castle in Montefeltro. Frederick Barbarossa made their ancestor Antonio imperial vicar of Urbino in 1155, and Frederick II made the brothers Buonconte and Taddeo counts of Urbino in 1226. In the Guelph-Ghibelline wars they led the imperial party against the Malatesta of Rimini.

Federico I seized Spoleto and Gubbio before being murdered in 1322. Cardinal Albornoz's campaigns of 1355 brought papal curbs on their power, though Antonio II restored rule in Urbino in 1377.

Guidantonio, count from 1403, was made duke of Spoleto. His illegitimate son Federico III, succeeding in 1444, made Urbino a Renaissance centre through his library and patronage of Piero della Francesca; Pope Sixtus IV made him Duke of Urbino in 1474. His son Guidobaldo I fled Cesare Borgia in 1502 and, dying without male heirs in 1508, left the duchy to his adopted nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere. The Della Rovere held Urbino until 1631, when the duchy reverted to the Papal States.