Francesco Maria II della Rovere (20 February 1549 – 23 April 1631) was the last Duke of Urbino.
Biography
Born at Pesaro, Francesco Maria was the son of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Count of Montefeltro and Vittoria Farnese, Princess of Parma. He was raised between 1565 and 1568 at the Royal court of Philip II of Spain. While there he met a Spanish girl and informed his father of his intention to marry her.[1] But his father would not allow it and demanded he return to Urbino. In 1570 Francesco Maria married Lucrezia d'Este, a daughter of Ercole II d'Este. His father died only a few years later, in 1574, and Francesco Maria succeeded him as Duke of Urbino. In 1578 he also succeeded Giulio della Rovere as Duke of Sora and Arce.
In 1579 the family estate was in crisis and Francesco Maria was forced to sell his family's titles – the Duchy of Sora and Arce – for 100,000 scudi to Giacomo Boncompagni.
Francesco Maria's marriage, though, remained childless and Francesco Maria needed a male heir. Without one, his family's remaining titles would lapse on his death and his entire estate would be acquired, by default, by the Papal States.
So in 1599, after the death of first wife Lucrezia, he married his cousin Livia della Rovere, 36 years his junior.[a] On 16 May 1605 their long-expected and only child Federico Ubaldo was born.
The aging Francesco Maria took up the title of Duke again, but as there was no more hope for a male heir, he gave his Duchy to Pope Urban VIII in 1625. The Pope's nephew Taddeo Barberini took control of the duchy which was annexed to the Papal States after Francesco's death at Urbania in 1631. The last member of the della Rovere family, Vittoria, inherited the Duke's art collection and had it transferred to Florence to the Uffizi Gallery.[1]
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