<div>
	HISTORY</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	The surviving population found refuge in the valley, between the walls of the powerful Benedictine abbey of San Cristoforo del Ponte (sec. VIII) around which, around 1284, was built the new city, the foundation of which was entrusted by Pope Martin IV, the Provencal priest Guillaume Durand, then governor of Romagna and the March of Ancona. Durand entrusted the task of building the city of Bologna which was perhaps due to the technical solution with two arcaded streets that makes Urbania a kind of Bologna in miniature. In honor of Guillaume Durand gave the place its name Casteldurante.</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	Entrusted lordship to the powerful family of Brancaleoni, the city was first Brancaleone, which succeeded, jointly, the sons Nicholas Philip Pierfancesco and Gentile. A Pierfrancesco, remained unique &quot;gentleman&quot; after the death of his brothers, and later the grandchildren Jailbird and Alberico (children of Nicola Filippo) and Bartholomew (son of Gentile), the only son predeceased his having Lamberto.</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	The three cousins ​​did not want to govern together and peacefully divided the dominion: the brothers Galeotto and Alberico, who remained together, went the majority, including the town of Urbania, while Bartolomeo got Mercatello sul Metauro and Massa Trabaria. The domain of the two brothers, become tyrants, it was brief, because the population oppressed invoked the intervention of Urbino Guidantonio ladies da Montefeltro that after a short siege of the city forced them to flee.</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	It was 1427 and since that time the fate of Casteldurante will follow that of the Duchy of Urbino, so much so that the lords of the latter is fregeranno the title of Dukes of Urbino and Casteldurante accounts. The branch of Mercatello on Metauro, however, died out with Gentile, first wife of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, which brought him the lands of his family, who remained the Montefeltro although this marriage no children were born.</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	Under the Della Rovere, successors of Montefeltro in the Duchy of Urbino, the old exclusive &quot;Brancaleoni palace&quot; was restored and renovated by a team of architects, including Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Annibale della Genga and Paul Scirri, this joint scirrhus Scirri, who was the first master of Bramante architecture. The Dukes of Urbino used the palace as a summer residence and the ducal Barco as a hunting lodge. Only the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II della Rovere, lived permanently in Casteldurante transferring the ducal court, where he died and was buried in the Church of the Holy Crucifix.</div>
