Overview
The construction of the 'votive church' is closely connected to the events of the Rovereschi ducal family. The 55-year-old Duke Francis Mary II, four days after his second marriage to a young niece named Livia, decided to have the building erected in 1603 as a vow to have a male heir. Ten years later, Antonio Viviani from Urbino, known as il Sordo, completed the complex Baroque decoration of the interior with a beautifully executed pictorial cycle. However, the façade remained unfinished until 1708, when the Compagnia del Corpus Domini, which had contributed to Urbino culture through the works of Paolo Uccello, Giusto di Gand and Titian, and which had counted Giovanni and Raffaello Santi among its affiliates, moved into the church, and the current façade, which is clearly in a later style, was designed.
