Urbino
an ancient town of central Italy; in the province of Pesaro and Urbino; between the Foglia and Metauro rivers, remote from the highways of commerce. It is a town of narrow, tortuous streets, with an archbishop's cathedral and other churches; a magnificent ducal palace (1447; restored, and now housing the fine art institution); a free university, dating from 1564, but now attracting less than 100 students, and the house in which Raphael was born, now the town museum. Cheese, silk, pins, UREA and some majolica ware are manufactured, but not the majolica for which the place was famous for a century and a half after 1475. Urbino, anciently the Urbinum Hortense of Umbria, Umbria, was a municipium under the Romans and was the seat of a line of independent dukes from 1474 to 1626. On the death then of the last duke Urban VIII. took possession of the duchy as a vacant fief; and it belonged to the Papal states till 1860, when it became part of the kingdom of Italy.
Pop. about 20,000.