Duke of Ferrara Ercole II D'ESTE

Notes:

Name:
Ercole II d'Este (5 April 1508 - 3 October 1559) was Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio from 1534 to 1559. He was the eldest son of Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia.

Biography
Through his mother, Ercole was a grandson of Pope Alexander VI, nephew of Cesare Borgia, and cousin of Saint Francis Borgia. Through his father, he was nephew of both Isabella d'Este, "the First Lady of the Renaissance", and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este. His siblings included Ippolito II, Archbishop of Milan and later Cardinal, nun Leonora, and Francesco, Marchese di Massalombarda. His half-siblings included Rodrigo Borgia of Aragon, Lucrezia?s son by Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglie, and perhaps Giovanni Borgia, the ?infans Romanus?.

Ercole played an indirect role in the 1527 Sack of Rome. Emperor Charles V's army crossed the Alps in 1526 but was unable to bring their heavy artillery with them. They sought to make a deal with Ercole, who subsequently provided the army with the necessary artillery to later advance on and sack the city of Rome.

In April 1528, he married Renée of France, the second daughter of Louis XII, King of France, and Anne of Brittany. Renée received from Francis I of France an ample dowry and annuity. Thus the court she assembled about her in Ferrara corresponded to the tradition which the cultivation of science and art implicitly required, including scholars like Bernardo Tasso and Fulvio Pellegrini Morato. Their first child, Anna, born in 1531, who was married to Francis, Duke of Guise, was followed by Alfonso in 1533; Lucrezia in 1535, who was married to the Duke of Urbino Francesco Maria II della Rovere; and later Eleonora and Luigi, whose education she carefully directed.

Once he became a Duke in October 1534, Ercole turned against the French at his court, finding them both too expensive and too influential, and by 1543 they had all been dismissed. He was also under pressure from the Curia to dismiss those suspected of heresy; John Calvin himself was in Ferrara sometime in 1536. Meanwhile, Duchess Renée was corresponding with a number of Protestants and was suspected to have converted, despite the presence of a special court of the Inquisition in Ferrara. Ercole brought accusations of heresy against his wife to King Henry II of France and Inquisitor Oriz in 1554, and she subsequently confessed.

Ercole sided with Pope Paul IV and France against Spain in 1556, but made a separate peace agreement in 1558. He was also a patron of the arts along with his brother, Cardinal Ippolito, who built the Villa d'Este near Tivoli.

Family/Spouse: Renee Of FRANCE. Renee (daughter of Louis XII King Of FRANCE and Anne Of BRITTANY) was born in 1510; died in 1575. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Anna D'ESTE was born on 16 Nov 1531; died on 17 May 1607.

Notes:

Name:
Alfonso d'Este (21 July 1476 - 31 October 1534) was Duke of Ferrara during the time of the War of the League of Cambrai.


Lucrezia Borgia, 1518 Dosso Dossi[1]
He was the son of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and Eleanor of Naples and became duke on Ercole's death in June 1505. In the first year of his rule he uncovered a plot by his brother Ferrante and half-brother Giulio d'Este, directed against him and his other brother Ippolito. In September 1506 a trial for lèse majesté and high treason was held and, as expected, the death sentence was passed, but just as Ferrante and Giulio were about to mount the gallows they were informed that the duke had commuted their sentence to life imprisonment. They were led away to two cells in the Torre dei Leoni. Ferrante died in his cell after 34 years of imprisonment, while Giulio held on until he was pardoned in 1559, after 53 years of imprisonment. After his release, Giulio was ridiculed in the streets of Ferrara for his outdated clothes and died in 1561.

In the Italian Wars Alfonso preserved his precarious position among the contending powers by flexibility and vigilance and the unrivalled fortifications of Ferrara; he entered the League of Cambrai against Venice and remained an ally of Louis XII of France even after Pope Julius II had made peace with Venice; when the Bolognesi rebelled against Julius and toppled Michelangelo's bronze statue of the Pope from above the gate, Alfonso received the shards and recast them as a cannon named La Giulia, which he set on the ramparts of the castello: in 1510 Julius excommunicated him and declared his fiefs forfeit, thereby adding Ferrara to the Papal States; Alfonso then fought successfully against the Venetian and Papal armies, gaining the Battle of Polesella, capturing Bologna, and playing a major part in the French victory at the Battle of Ravenna (1512). These successes were based on Ferrara's artillery, produced in his own foundry which was the best of its time.[2][3] In both of his portraits by Titian, (Compare illustration above) he poses with his arm across the mouth of one of his cannon.

In 1526?1527 Alfonso participated in the expedition of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, against Pope Clement VII, and in 1530 the pope again recognized him as possessor of the forfeited duchies of Modena and Reggio.

Marriages
In January 1491, Alfonso was married to Anna Sforza, the niece of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. In the same ceremony, Ludovico was married to Alfonso's younger sister, Beatrice d'Este, in a double wedding orchestrated by Leonardo da Vinci.

Politically, the wedding was designed to cement ties between the two families. Anna Sforza's death, on 30 November 1497, marked the end of those ties, as Beatrice d'Este had died in January of that same year.

Alfonso later remarried, to Lucrezia Borgia, in 1502.

After Lucrezia's death on June 24, 1519, he married Laura Dianti by whom he had an illegitimate son, Alfonso d'Este (later legitimized).

Art

Aeneas and Achates on the Libyan shore, painted by Dosso Dossi for Alfonso's camerino d'alabastro (National Gallery of Art, Washington).
Like his brother Ippolito I, Cardinal d'Este, he was one of the great patrons of art of his time: for him the elderly Giovanni Bellini painted The Feast of the Gods in 1514, Bellini's last completed painting. He turned to Bellini's pupil, Titian, for a sequence of paintings. In 1529 Alfonso created the most magnificent gallery of his time, his studiolo or camerino d'alabastro ('small alabaster room'), now usually known as his "Camerino", in order to better display his works of art against white marble-veneered walls under a gilded ceiling.[4] The pallor of the marble led to the name of this room as the chamber of alabaster. There are documents from Mario Equicola on 9 October 1511, noting plans for painting of a room in Ferrara, in which six fables (fabule) or histories (istorie) shall be placed. I have already found them and have presented them in writing." A letter from Alfonso, dated 14 November 1514, authorized payment to Giovanni Bellini, the first painting completed for the chamber.

Titian is known to have painted two portraits of Alfonso: the first was widely acclaimed, singled out by Michelangelo and coerced as a diplomatic gift by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor; Alfonso induced Titian to paint a free replica, which the artist of the painting illustrated above has adapted for his model.[5] Over the next two decades, Titian added three more paintings: The Worship of Venus (Museo del Prado, Madrid), The Bacchanal of the Andrians (Prado, Madrid), and Bacchus and Ariadne (National Gallery, London). Dosso Dossi produced another large bacchanal, and he also contributed ceiling decorations and a painted frieze for the cornice, depicting scenes from the Aeneid, which gained immediacy by showing the heroes in contemporary dress (illustration, left). All the bacchanals in the Alabaster Chamber dealt with love, and some refer to marriage. After the Este family lost control of Ferrara in 1598, the Alabaster Chamber's paintings and sculpture were dispersed.

Alfonso inherited from Cardinal d'Este the poet Ariosto. Following in the lead of his father Ercole, who had made Ferrara into one of the musical centers of Europe, Alfonso brought some of the most famous musicians of the time to his court to work as composers, instrumentalists and singers. Musicians from northern Europe who worked at Ferrara during his reign included Antoine Brumel and Adrian Willaert, the latter of whom was to become the founder of the Venetian School, something which could not have happened without Alfonso's patronage.

History
When Alfonso's grandson Alfonso II d'Este?Robert Browning's duke of "My Last Duchess"[6]?produced no male heir, the main d'Este line died out. A grandson of Alfonso I and cousin of Alfonso II, Cesare d'Este had been born out of wedlock. He was recognized by the Emperor but not by the Pope, who took the Duchy of Ferrara by force. Nevertheless, the House of Este continued in Modena and Reggio.

Alfonso married Lucrezia BORGIA in 1502. Lucrezia died on 24 Jun 1519. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Name:
Ercole I d'Este, KG (26 October 1431 - 25 January 1505) was Duke of Ferrara from 1471 until 1505. He was a member of the House of Este. He was nicknamed North Wind and The Diamond.[1]

Ercole was born in 1431 in Ferrara to Nicolò III and Ricciarda da Saluzzo. His maternal grandparents were Thomas III of Saluzzo and Marguerite of Roussy.

He was educated at the Neapolitan court of Alfonso, king of Aragon and Naples, from 1445 to 1460; there he studied military arts, chivalry, and acquired the appreciation for architecture all'antica and the fine arts, which would result in his becoming one of the most significant art patrons of the Renaissance.[2]

In 1471, with the support of the Republic of Venice, he became Duke on the death of his half-brother Borso, profiting of the absence of the latter's son, Niccolò, who was in Mantua. [3] During an absence of Ercole from Ferrara, Niccolò attempted a coup, which was however crushed; Niccolò and his cousin Azzo were beheaded on 4 September 1476. Ercole married Eleonora d'Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples, in 1473. The Este alliance with Naples was to prove a powerful one.

In 1482?1484 he fought a war with the Republic of Venice, which was allied with Ercole's nemesis, the Della Rovere Pope Sixtus IV, occasioned by the salt monopoly, the War of Ferrara. Ercole was able to end the war by ceding the Polesine at the Peace of Bagnolo, and Ferrara escaped the fate of destruction or absorption into the papal dominions, but the war was a humiliation for Ercole, who lay sick and immobilized while the besieging army destroyed Este properties in the surrounding neighbourhoods.

After this, he remained neutral in the Italian War of 1494-1498, and tried for the rest of his rule to improve relations with the Papal states. He reluctantly agreed to the marriage of his son Alfonso to Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, a marriage that brought notable territorial donations.

His subsequent career as a patron may be seen to some extent as compensation for the early military setback: significantly, Ercole was the only Italian ruler who characterized himself as divus on his coinage, like a Roman emperor.[4]

The scale and consistency of Ercole's patronage of the arts was in part a political and cultural statement. He hosted theatrical representations with elaborate scenery and musical intermezzi, some of the first purely secular theatre in Europe since Antiquity[5] and was successful in setting up a musical establishment which was for a few years the finest in Europe, overshadowing the Vatican chapel itself.[6] For the next century Ferrara was to retain the character of a center of avant-garde music with a decidedly secular emphasis. In music history Ercole was one of the Italian nobles most responsible for bringing the talented Franco-Flemish musicians from northern Europe into Italy. The most famous composers of Europe either worked for him, were commissioned by him, or dedicated music to him, including Alexander Agricola, Jacob Obrecht, Heinrich Isaac, Adrian Willaert, and Josquin des Prez, whose Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae not only is dedicated to him, but is based on a theme drawn from the syllables of the Duke's name.


Grosh issued under Ercole I d'Este.
Ercole is equally famous as a patron of the arts, as much an expression of his conscious magnificence as his cultivated aloofness, grave and stern as befitted the new ducal rank of Ferrara (Manca 1989:524ff). He made the poet Boiardo his minister, and also brought the young Ludovico Ariosto into his household.

Under Ercole Ferrara became one of the leading cities of Europe; it underwent substantial growth in the Ercolean Addition, approximately doubling in size, under Ercole's direct guidance, producing the first planned and executed urbanistic project of the Renaissance. To enclose it, he extended the city's walls, hiring architect Biagio Rossetti for the work.[7] Many of Ferrara's most famous buildings date from his reign.

Ercole was an admirer of church reformer Girolamo Savonarola, who was also from Ferrara, and sought his advice on both spiritual and political matters. Approximately a dozen letters between the two survive from the 1490s. Ercole attempted to have Savonarola freed by the Florentine church authorities, but was unsuccessful; the reformist monk was burned at the stake in 1498.[8]

In 1503 or 1504, Ercole asked his newly hired composer Josquin des Prez to write a musical testament for him, structured on Savonarola's prison meditation Infelix ego. The result was the Miserere, probably first performed for Holy Week in 1504, with the tenor part possibly sung by the Duke himself.[9]

Ercole died on 25 January 1505, and his son Alfonso became Duke.[10]

Family and issue
Ercole and Eleonora had six children:

Isabella born 1474 (married Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua; leading patron of the Renaissance)
Beatrice born 1475 (married Ludovico Sforza, future Duke of Milan)
Alfonso (married Lucrezia Borgia)
Ferrante (thrown into prison by his brother Alfonso in 1506, where he died 34 years later)
Ippolito (cardinal)
Sigismondo d'Este
Ercole had two illegitimate children:

Lucrezia d'Este, born ca 1477 (married Annibale II Bentivoglio)
Giulio

Ercole married Leonora Of NAPLES in 1475. Leonora (daughter of Ferdinand I Of NAPLES and Isabella Of TARANTO) was born on 22 Jun 1450; died on 11 Oct 1493. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

She was consort to Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and mother to Isabella d'Este and Beatrice d'Este. The later daughter was consort to Ludovico Sforza.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Also Known As: Don Ferrante

Notes:

In order to arrange a good future for Ferdinand, King Alfonso had him married in 1444 to a feudal heiress, Isabella of Taranto, who besides being the elder daughter of Tristan di Chiaramonte (Tristan de Clermont-Lodeve), Count of Capertino, and Catherine of Baux Orsini, was the niece and heiress presumptive of childless prince Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini of Taranto. She was a granddaughter of Queen Mary of Enghien (mother of Giovanni and Catherine), who had been Queen Consort of Naples (Queen of Jerusalem and Sicily) in 1406-14.

Ferrante's wife was the heiress presumptive of remarkable feudal possessions in Southern Italy.

He used the title King of Naples and Jerusalem (Ferdinand I of Naples). In accordance with his father's will, Ferdinand succeeded Alfonso on the throne of Naples in 1458, when he was 35 years old, but Pope Calixtus III declared the line of Aragon extinct and the kingdom a fief of the church. But although he died before he could make good his claim (August 1458), and the new Pope Pius II recognized Ferdinand, John of Anjou, profiting by the discontent of the Neapolitan barons, decided to try to regain the throne of his ancestors that was lost by his father RenÈ, and invaded Naples.

Ferdinand was severely defeated by the Angevins and the rebels at Sarno in July 1460, but with the help of Alessandro Sforza and of the Albanian chief, Skanderbeg, who came to the aid of the prince whose father had aided him, he triumphed over his enemies, and by 1464 had re-established his authority in the kingdom. In 1478 he allied himself with Pope Sixtus IV against Lorenzo de 'Medici, but the latter journeyed alone to Naples where he succeeded in negotiating an honourable peace with Ferdinand.

The original intent of making Taranto as his and his heirs' main principality was not any longer current, but still it was a strengthening of Ferrante's resources and position that his wife in 1463 succeeded her uncle Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini as possessor of Taranto fiefs. Isabella became also the holder of Brienne rights to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

After Isabella's death in 1465, Ferrante married secondly Infanta Juana of Aragon, his own first cousin, in 1476.

In 1480, forces of the Ottoman Empire under orders of Mehmed II captured Otranto, and massacred the majority of the inhabitants, but in the following year it was retaken by Ferdinand's son Alphonso, duke of Calabria. His oppressive government led in 1485 to an attempt at revolt on the part of the nobles, led by Francesca Coppola and Antonello Sanseverino and supported by Pope Innocent VIII; the rising having been crushed, many of the nobles, notwithstanding Ferdinand's promise of a general amnesty, were afterwards treacherously murdered at his express command.

Coronato of Ferrante I of Naples.Encouraged by Ludovico Sforza of Milan, in 1493 King Charles VIII of France was preparing to invade Italy for the conquest of Naples and starting the Italian Wars, and Ferdinand realized that this was a greater danger than any he had yet faced. With almost prophetic instinct he warned the Italian princes of the calamities in store for them, but his negotiations with Pope Alexander VI and Ludovico Sforza failed.

He died on January 25, 1494, worn out with anxiety; he was succeeded by his son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, who was soon deposed by the invasion of King Charles which his father had so feared. The cause of his death was determined, in 2006, to have been colorectal cancer, by examination of his mummy.

Ferdinand also had a number of illegitimate children:

By his mistress Diana Guardato.
Ferdinand d' Aragona, Duke di Montalto.
Maria d'Aragona. Later consort to Antonio Todeschini Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi, a nephew of Pope Pius II and brother of Pope Pius III.
Giovanna d' Aragona. Later consort to Leonardo della Rovere, Duke of Arce and Sora, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV and brother of Pope Julius II.
By his mistress Eulalia Ravignano.
Maria d'Aragona. Later wife to Gian Giordano Orsini.
By his mistress Giovanna Caracciola.
Ferdinand d'Aragona, Count of Arsena.
Arrigo d'Aragona, Marquess of Gerace
Cesare d'Aragona, Marquess of Santa Agata.
Leonor d'Aragona.
Lucrezia d'Aragona, daughter of either Giovanna Caracciola or Eulalia Ravignano. She was consort to Onorata III, Prince of Altamura.
This article incorporates text from the EncyclopÊdia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Ferdinand married Isabella Of TARANTO in 1444. Isabella was born about 1424; died on 30 Mar 1465; was buried in St. Pietro the Martyr. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
Isabella di Taranto, born Isabella de Clermont, (c. 1424-1465), Princess of Taranto, was the elder daughter of Tristan di Chiaramonte (Tristan de Clermont-Lodeve), Count of Cupertino, and Catherine of Taranto. She was also the niece and heiress presumptive of childless Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, prince of Taranto. She was a granddaughter of queen Mary of Enghien (mother of Giovanni and Catherine), who had been queen consort of Naples (Queen of Jerusalem and Sicily) in 1406-14. Thus, she was the heiress presumptive of feudal possessions in Southern Italy.

In 1444 (or 30 May 1445) she married Ferrante di Aragona, then Duke of Calabria (1423-1494), natural son of Alfonso V of Aragon who had recently conquered the Neapolitan kingdom from French Angevins, and thus was the new liege lord of Isabella and her family. Alfonso arranged this marriage in order to give a good future to his favorite bastard son, by giving him his own principality by marriage. Also, Alfonso wanted his loyal people (such as his own son) to have feudal fiefs in his new kingdom, which would happen in the future as soon as Ferdinand and Isabella succeeded in Taranto. The marriage also strengthened the king's grip on the current lords of Taranto.

In 1458 her husband became, by the will of king Alfonso, King in his conquered territories and as such used the title King of Naples and Jerusalem, and Isabella became queen consort. By that point, they had several children of their own, the eldest being the 10-year-old Alphonso.

They no longer wanted to make Taranto their principal holding, but it was still a strong possession, and in 1463 Isabella succeeded her uncle Giovanni Antonio in Taranto. Isabella also inherited the Brienne claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Isabella died 30 March in 1465, buried in St.Pietro the Martyr. Her heir was her eldest son, Alphonso, then Duke of Calabria, the future king Alfonso II of Naples and Jerusalem.

Her widower King Ferrante (born 1423, died January 25, 1494) secondly married Infanta Juana of Aragon, his own first cousin, in 1476