Portrait of Vittoria della Rovere

Vittoria della Rovere was the last of her family, and her inheritance changed what hangs in the Uffizi. When the duchy of Urbino died out with her grandfather in 1631, its ducal collection passed to her, and she carried it into Florence as the wife of Grand Duke Ferdinando the Second. Among the pictures that made the journey were Titian's reclining nude now known as the Venus of Urbino and Piero della Francesca's double portrait of the duke and duchess of Urbino, all of which still hang in these rooms. Sustermans painted her more than once across her long life. Here she appears as grand duchess in her early thirties, in dark silk and pearls, some 20 years before she withdrew into the strict piety that filled her widowhood.