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In their quest for an ideal prince–“probably embodied by the Duke of Urbino, Federico di Montefeltro, more than any other–“fifteenth-century Italian thinkers fashioned the image of a prince who would be both a man of war and a man of letters. They favored the latter, which required peace in order to thrive. But beyond this ideal, the instability experienced in Italy during the century required that the princes have greater legitimacy, which, depending on the political context, relied on virtue or on lineage. A new development led to these princes using works of art (painting, and architecture even more) to buttress and illustrate both their legitimacy and their ideal, as though they were constructing their own myths. This highly political patronage, verging on propaganda, was the tangible sign of a political evolution, which, as it gave art greater status, also enforced political control over it.