Odasi Palace

"It is situated in the area formerly called quadra di posterula and it occupies a wide quarter between via Valerio, the garden close to the Istituto Musicale (Music Institute) and the first of the three arms of Via dei Fornari. Downhill it reaches via Budassi by the small street called foro di Posterula. The building was erected in successive stages. In the first and more ancient stage, the core at the ground floor was built – at the level of the second part of Via dei Fornari – and surrounding a courtyard which has 14th century traits, then changed in the early 15th century, as you can see from the capitals on the round brick columns. During that period, the house was owned by the Bonaventura Family, as Ludovico Odasi states in his will (1509).

 Odasi probably took the house when the Bonaventura family moved in 1466 to what was formerly the Montefeltro building, which Federico gave them. Ludovico, a scholar, was the preceptor of Federico’s son, Guidubaldo and then of Francesco Maria I, and was even buried in the church of San Bernardino. It is likely that the building underwent major renovations in 1580s, period in which Odasi became so close to the Duke as to be represented in two famous paitings: Federico e Guidubaldo a lezione (Federico and Guidubaldo in class) and la Comunione degli Apostoli (Communion of the the Apostoles) both painted by Giusto da Guanto. Other parts of the house were also built according to the style of this period, such as the hanging garden, recently restored and renewed (1972) with columns surmounted by ionic capitals. In their elegant flutes under the volutes, they are reminiscent of some feet in the ground rooms of the Ducal Palace (towards the hanging garden). There is also the painted wooden ceiling, coffered under the arcade, which can date back to between 1474 and 1482, as not only are there the well-known Ducal symbols, but also the initials of the motto SEPFE (Seconda per Federicum). Here there is also wonderful door with palmette frieze, which was probably taken from the Sala degli Angeli (Angel’s Room) of the Ducal Palace. A third stage of development and enrichment took place in 1539 when Giulio Cesare was confirmed by Guidobaldo as Count, a title previously held by his father Ludovico Odasi. 

The initials JCOIFC, repeated in the architraves of some of the left portals mean Julius Caesar Odasius Insulae Fusariae Comes, about whom, however, facts and merits remain unknown. In the 17th century, the building was handed down to the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Misericordia. Then, after the Unity of Italy in 1866, the building was bought by the local government and meagre times began. The body of the building was pulled down in front of the current Via Valerio, and with it fell the façade adorned with 15th century frescos and the whole building was revised and dismantled. A valuable piece of the gothic style wooden doors is now kept at the Ducal Palace

From Urbino, i mattoni e le pietre, Franco Mazzini, Argalia Editore, 1982 Urbino.