From Piazza Sant’Andrea, which is bordered by the old Lion fountain, one enters the heart of the Lavagine contrada, which in its lower part is formed by a maze of narrow streets, among which the old Via dei Vasari, home to the Vecchia Urbino restaurant and just before the City Gate.
The premises once belonged to Casa Viviani, a sixteenth-century building that now houses an International Engraving and Etching Centre belonging to the Accademia Raffaello
The treatise on divina proportione (divine proportion) by mathematician Luca Pacioli, led to the idea of a particular artistic form, the so-called Ducal Star, an object that is traditionally the symbol of Urbino’s Renaissance spirit.
This artistic, handcrafted item has a multiform pyramid structure and is used as the outer part of a lamp. It was made by master craftsmen of the period using blown glass and brass and would adorn the noble homes of Urbino. The heirs to this tradition still follow the old methods used to make these objects, respecting the rigorous forms and the precise regulations celebrated in the late fifteenth-century treatise.
Urbino vaga, leggiadra, montanina et bella citta’