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Alfonso I d'Este

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Alfonso I d'Este
Alfonso by Titian; Alfonso leans on a cannon, holding his sword
Duke of Ferrara, Duke of Modena and Reggio
Reign25 January 1505 – 31 October 1534
PredecessorErcole I d’Este
SuccessorErcole II d'Este
Born21 July 1476
Subiaco, Papal States
Died31 October 1534(1534-10-31) (aged 58)
Ferrara, Duchy of Ferrara
SpouseAnna Sforza
(m. 1491; died 1497)
Lucrezia Borgia
(m. 1501; died 1519)
Laura Dianti
(m. 1534)[a]
Issue
Detail		Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara
Ippolito II d'Este
Leonora d'Este
Francesco d'Este, Marchese di Massalombarda
Alfonso d'Este, Lord of Montecchio (illegitimate, father of Cesare d'Este)
HouseEste
FatherErcole I d'Este
MotherEleanor of Naples

Alfonso I d'Este (21 July 1476 – 31 October 1534) was Duke of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio from 1505 until his death in 1534. A prominent military leader during the Italian Wars, he served on various sides throughout the conflict. Renowned for his innovations in the use of artillery, he earned the nickname Duca Artigliere ("Artilleryman Duke").[3]

Biography

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Alfonso d'Este as Knight of the Order of Saint Michael, by Dosso Dossi

Alfonso was the son of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and Eleanor of Naples,[4] and became duke on Ercole's death in January 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.[5] 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 After his release, Giulio was ridiculed in the streets of Ferrara for his outdated clothes and died in 1561.

Italian Wars

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In the Italian Wars Alfonso preserved his precarious position among the contending powers by flexibility and vigilance and the unrivalled fortifications of Ferrara. During the first war, he fought with the Holy League against King Charles VIII of France, assisting his brother-in-law Ludovico Sforza from Milan, while his brother Ferrante fought for Charles instead.[6] A bout of syphilis, however, prevented him from commanding the Ferrarese contingent in the Battle of Fornovo in 1495, where Francesco II Gonzaga was defeated by the French.[7] Even then, the League was successful in expelling the French from the Italian peninsula after the Siege of Atella.

In 1508, he entered the League of Cambrai against Venice, acting as Gonfaloniere for the army of Pope Julius II. Two years later, however, he did not accept Julius' peace with Venice and turn against France, which was politically inconvenient for Ferrara. He remained an ally of Louis XII of France and warred against the League instead. 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. Julius excommunicated him and declared his fiefs forfeit, thereby adding Ferrara to the Papal States.

Alfonso fought successfully against the Venetian and Papal armies, winning 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.[8][9] In both of his portraits by Titian, (Compare illustration above) he poses with his arm across the mouth of one of his cannon.

In 1518 he sought the support of King Francis I of France to recover his feud of Modena from the Pope's hands, but it was unsuccessful. In 1526 Alfonso changed sides and participated in the expedition of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, against the League of Cognac, which included Pope Clement VII and Francis I. He provided Charles with his advanced artillery, arming his landsknecht with especially made falconets, which greatly helped the Imperial effort.[10] One of his falconets killed the League's land general Giovanni delle Bande Nere.[11] The admiral of the League, Andrea Doria, also changed sides and joined the emperor, eventually granting him the victory of the war. With Charles' help, in 1530 the pope again recognized Alfonso as possessor of the forfeited duchies of Modena and Reggio.

Marriages and issue

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In January 1491, Alfonso married Anna Maria Sforza, the niece of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The wedding was part of a double marriage arranged by Leonardo da Vinci, during which Ludovico himself married Alfonso's younger sister, Beatrice d'Este. Alfonso and Anna had one daughter who died in childbirth.

The marriage was primarily political, aimed at cementing ties between the Este and Sforza families. However, the alliance effectively ended with the deaths of both Anna (30 November 1497) and Beatrice (January 1497).

The Este siblings' medals: Isabella, Beatrice, Alfonso, and Ippolito.

In 1501, Alfonso married Lucrezia Borgia.[4] They had:

  1. A stillborn daughter (1502);
  2. Alessandro d'Este (1505–1505);
  3. Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (5 April 1508 – 3 October 1559)[4]
  4. Ippolito II d'Este (25 August 1509 – 1 December 1572), Archbishop of Milan and later Cardinal
  5. Alessandro d'Este (1514–1516)
  6. Leonora d'Este (3 July 1515 – 15 July 1575), a nun and composer
  7. Francesco d'Este, Marquess of Massalombarda (1 November 1516 – 2 February 1578)
  8. Isabella Maria d'Este (born and died on 14 June 1519)[12]

After Lucrezia's death on 24 June 1519, Alfonso formed a union with Laura Dianti, by whom he had two illegitimate sons (later legitimized): Alfonso and Alfonsino d'Este.

Art

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Via Coperta

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.[13] 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.[14] 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 sculptures 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 centres 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

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When Alfonso's grandson Alfonso II d'Este—Robert Browning's duke of "My Last Duchess"[15]—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.


See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ The marriage between Alfonso I and Laura Dianti probably took place shortly before the Duke's death in 1534.[1] The historian Muratori tried to prove that the marriage had taken place, collecting a considerable amount of documentation,[2] but there does not seem to be any official document of a marriage that actually took place. Even in the absence of absolute documentary proof, "there can be no doubts about the public, official nature of the union".[2]

References

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  1. ^ Bertoni, Luisa. "ESTE, Alfonso d' | Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 43 (1993)". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  2. ^ a b Pellizzer Sonia. "DIANTI, Laura | Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 39 (1991)". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  3. ^ Francesco Locatelli, La fabbrica ducale estense delle artiglierie (da Leonello ad Alfonso II d'Este), 1985, p. 35.
  4. ^ a b c Colantuono 2010, p. 198.
  5. ^ Celati 2023, p. 22.
  6. ^ Bernardino Zambotti, Diario Ferrarese dall'anno 1476 sino al 1504, p. 252.
  7. ^ Rerum italicarum scriptores raccolta degli storici italiani dal cinquecento al millecinquecento · Volume 24, Numero 7, Parte 2, p. XXVII.
  8. ^ Murrin, Michael (1994). History and warfare in Renaissance epic (Pbk. ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 124–125. ISBN 978-0226554037.
  9. ^ Mallett, Michael; Shaw, Christine (2005). The Italian Wars, 1494–1559 : War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe (1st ed.). Harlow: Pearson. p. 107. ISBN 978-0582057586.
  10. ^ Luciano Chiappini, La familia Este, Varese, 1988, p.240.
  11. ^ Cesare Marchi, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, Milan, 1981.
  12. ^ Gregorovius, Ferdinand (2012). Lucrezia Borgia. dearbooks in Europäischer Literaturverlag GmbH. p. 292. ISBN 9783954554195.
  13. ^ "Reconstructing the Duke's private gallery". www.webexhibits.org.
  14. ^ Bryson Burroughs, "The Portrait of Alfonso d'Este by Titian" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 22.4 (April 1927), pp. 97–101.
  15. ^ "Browning's Portrait of a Renaissance Man: Alphonso II D' este, Duke of Ferrara, in "My Last Duchess" (1842)". Archived from the original on 29 September 2005. Retrieved 6 July 2005.

Bibliography

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  • Celati, Maria (2023). "Conflict and Reconciliation in Italian Renaissance Conspiracies: Literary Sources and Political Perspectives". In Kraye, Jill; Laureys, Marc; Lines, David A. (eds.). Management and Resolution of Conflict and Rivalries in Renaissance Europe. Bonn University Press. pp. 11–36. ISBN 9783847006282.22
  • Colantuono, Anthony (2010). "Estense Patronage and the Construction of the Ferrarese Renaissance, c.1395-1598". In Rosenberg, Charles M. (ed.). The Court Cities of Northern Italy: Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Mantua, Ferrara, Bologna, Urbino, Pesaro, and Rimini. Cambridge University Press. pp. 196–243. ISBN 9780521792486.
  • Taylor, Frederick Lewis (1973). The Art of War in Italy, 1494–1529. Westport: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-8371-5025-6.
  • Prignano, Gaia (2020). "Music Theories and Identity Issues: Depicting Canons chez Alfonso I d'Este". Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography. 45 (1–2): 53–71. ISSN 1522-7464.
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Media related to Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara at Wikimedia Commons

Alfonso I d'Este
Born: 21 July 1476 Died: 31 October 1534
Regnal titles
Preceded by Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio
1505–1534
forfeit 1510–1530 		Succeeded by
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