Church of San Francesco di Paola

Church of votive origin that is closely linked to the last dramatic events of the dynasty Rovere.It was built in fact in 1603 by the fifty-five Duke Francesco Maria II four days after his second marriage with the young niece Livia, to be granted the vote to have a ' Heir to the building could be said a decade later, when the baroque Urbino Antonio Viviani called the deaf in 1614, concluded with its significant pictorial cycle the complex Baroque decoration of the interior. The current design of the project is evidently later, it seems to connect to the transfer of the Corpus Domini confraternity, here in 1708. In fact, that historical Company that had given to Urbino the masterpieces of Paolo Uccello, of right of Gand and Titian, who had counted among its affiliates also the painters Giovanni and Raffaello Santi moved precisely in this Church On the façade, which appears to be superimposed and somewhat alien to the squat body of the building behind it, one can read the stylistic features of the early eighteenth century: the drawing of the folders inscribed between pilasters and cornices with the brim raised in brick, unencumbered by festoons and statues, tripartite on two orders plus the fastigio; the elegant portal with the mixtilinear steps protruding from the threshold. The symbols of the confraternity are clearly evident both in the tympanum of the portal itself, and at the center of the pediment, not without the initials of the munificent right theodore.
Otherwise, the interior is rather rich, consisting of a not very large hall and a flat-bottomed recess of the main altar. The architectural design consists of the Corinthian polystyrene pilasters, above which runs a frieze with a tax cornice for a much lowered vaulted ceiling, invaded by a late 16th century baroque stucco decoration.
Allegorical figures of Virtue, winged cherubs, adorned with classical repertoire, surround the motif of the dominant frames for the frescoes with the "stories" of the titular saint: the Gloria in the central ovate linked to the two large panels; then, as well as in the two small ovates, still in the ceiling, the figures continue in the three squares of the right side wall - opposite to the same number of windows towards Via delle Stallacce - in the three ovates of the sub-arc of the Nicchiane; while in the box above the high altar Viviani inserted a Nativity; finally, on the sides of the triumphal arch - on which the richly framed Roverian coat of arms is on display - the allegories of the Faith and Charity.
The high altar - whose altarpiece, depicting San Francesco da Paola, is the work of Michelangelo Dolci (restored in 1978) - is of polychrome marble and occupies the entire floor of the niche with the lateral figures of the angels-caryatids in stucco.
To balance and support the upper decoration is the tripartite one from Corinthian pilasters of the side walls, where, in the center, are two altars. Above the rather protruding table, the space of the inter-gymnasium is occupied by a frame that encloses the niche hosting the stucco statues. On the left Madonna with Child and on the right San Filippo Neri. The other intercolumns are occupied by other niches with the statues of Saints Feliciano and Giuseppe (left), Beato Mainardo and San Crescentino (right).
In the "Diary" of Pope Albani (1703) it is recalled that in this church "not far from the Ghetto ... he used to be preached for the Jews every Saturday by a Dominican as it is costumed in Rome". "

From Urbino, bricks and stones, Franco Mazzini, Argalia Editore, 1982 Urbino.