Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola

The "Originally a votive church it is closely connected with the dramatic events of the Della Rovere dynasty. It was commissioned in 1603 by the fifty-five year old Duke Francesco Maria II four days after his second marriage with his young niece Livia, as a vow to have a male heir. The building was completed ten years later, when in 1614 the baroque Antonio Viviani from Urbino, called “The deaf”, finished, with his valuable paintings, the complex baroque decoration in the church. The façade was still incomplete, though, because the current one has a more modern style, and was probably realised when the Corpus Domini Confraternity moved here in 1708. It is this historic confraternity that gave to Urbino the works of Paolo Uccello, Joos Van Gent and Tiziano, and that had among its members Giovanni and Raffaello Santi.