When wrought by a clever craftsman, its surface has neither the waxiness of Parian, nor the brittle edge of Carrara marble; and it resists weather better than marble of the choicest quality.  This may be observed in many monuments of Venice, where the stone has been long exposed to sea-air.  These qualities of the Dalmatian limestone, no less than its agreeable creamy hue and smooth dull polish, adapt it to decoration in low relief.  The most attractive details in the palace at Urbino are friezes carved of this material in choice designs of early Renaissance dignity and grace.  One chimney-piece in the Sala degli Angeli deserves especial comment.  A frieze of dancing Cupids, with gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left white on a ground of ultramarine, is supported by broad flat pilasters.  These are engraved with children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnations on the other.  Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each end, hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is carved with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of the Montefeltri on a raised medallion.  Throughout the palace we notice emblems appropriate to the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere:  their arms, three golden bends upon a field of azure:  the Imperial eagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire:  the Garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo:  the ermine of Naples:  the ventosa, or cupping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick:  the golden oak-tree on an azure field of Della Rovere:  the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its accompanying motto, Inclinata Resurgam:  the cipher, FE DX.  Profile medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible relief, adorn the staircases.  Round the great courtyard runs a frieze of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of war, alluding to Duke Frederick’s profession of Condottiere.  The doorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus foliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in all the riot of Renaissance fancy.

This profusion of sculptured rilievo is nearly all that remains to show how rich the palace was in things of beauty.  Castiglione, writing in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that ’in the opinion of many it is the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace than a city.  Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels of silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, and suchlike furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marble statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts.  There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality to be seen there.  Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large number of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin,