The masterpiece for Christmas, on display this year at Palazzo Marino, is by Federico Fiori known as Barocci (Urbino, 1533 – 1612).

He is the direct heir of Raphael's classicism, and his work metaphorically concludes the High Renaissance period and that of the Duchy of Montefeltro. 

Names that have made the history of art, such as Piero della Francesca and Donato Bramante, also practiced their craft in the Urbino capital, the birthplace of both Barocci and Raphael.

At the age of thirty, after important residencies and commissions in Rome, Federico Barocci self-exiled to his hometown, far away from the great cultural centres. Nonetheless, he became an interlocutor of popes, sovereigns and emperors, and one of the favourite painters of Federico Borromeo, cardinal and archbishop of Milano from 1595.

His most famous works are the altarpieces, such as the Madonna and Child with Saints Simon and Jude, painted between 1566 and 1567, exhibited at Palazzo Marino this year.
 

The 283 x 190 cm canvas depicts Saint Jude Thaddeus, with the halberd of his martyrdom, to the right of the Madonna; Saint Simon, identifiable thanks to the saw used by his torturers to kill him, to the left of the main group, consisting of the Virgin who is teaching the Child to read. The patrons who donated the work to the Church are depicted in the lower right corner.

The Madonna of San Simone is presented in the Sala Alessi embraced by a scenic backdrop which metaphorically depicts the city of Urbino, in a graphic representation entrusted to the internationally-renowned illustrator Carlo Stanga. 

The exhibition is further enhanced by an autographed drawing by Barocci, from the Gabinetto dei Disegni design archive at the Castello Sforzesco, a preparatory work for the figure of a devotee in the altarpiece of the Madonna del Popolo, a painting now preserved in the Uffizi.

Made between 1575 and 1579, the draft offers the opportunity to immerse oneself in Barocci's creative process. It is, in fact, the fragment of a large cartoon, drawn in charcoal and white chalk, where the contours of the figure are engraved with a stylus to trace the composition directly onto the altarpiece.