Ercole I d’Este

Duke of Ferrara, the promoter of a fine court, author of the famous ‘Herculean addition’ that modified the historic layout of the city and was lauded by Ariosto in Orlando furioso III, 48-49, was born in Ferrara in 1431, succeeded Borso d’Este in 1471 and died in 1505. During his reign Ferrara lived its golden age of Renaissance. As an adolescent he was in Naples, with Alfonso d’Aragona, where he stayed from 1445 to 1458 as a gentleman-in-waiting. Back in Ferrara, in 1463, he was recruited as a condottiero by the  Republic of Venice. When Borso died, he managed to impose himself as Duke also thanks to Venice’s military contribution. In 1473 he married Eleonora d’Aragona, who bore him seven children: Isabella, Beatrice, Alfonso, Ferrante, Ippolito, Sigismondo and Alberto. He set up a series of alliances with the more important Italian states through a farsighted matrimonial policy. But Venice escaped this carefully constructed network, a city with which there were heavy contrasts that broke out into the war between Venice and Ferrara in 1482-1484 that had catastrophic effects on the Duchy of Ferrara. From then on Ercole I adopted a neutral policy, above all in the last decade [1494-1504], at the crucial moment in which the descent of King Charles VIII of France and the plans for expansions in central Italy nurtured by Cesare Borgia caused the upheaval of the peace agreement made in Lodi in 1454. Pope Julius II, in 1503, involved him in a plan that anticipated the League of  Cambrai, together with France and the Empire. Ludovico Ariosto joined the court of Ercole I in 1497, as a paid courtier, even if poorly remunerated, thanks to the insistence of his father Niccolò who was preoccupied for his son’s economic future. He remained at the Duke’s court till 1503, when he entered the service of Ippolito. There is a reference to the period passed at Ercole I’s court in the ode  De diversis amoribus.