Eleonora d'Este (4 July 1515 – 1575) was a Ferrarese noblewoman. She was the first daughter of

Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara Alfonso d'Este (21 July 1476 – 31 October 1534) was Duke of Ferrara during the time of the War of the League of Cambrai. Biography He was the son of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and Eleanor of Naples and became duke on Ercole's death in ...

and his second wife

Lucrezia Borgia Lucrezia Borgia (; ca-valencia, Lucrècia Borja, links=no ; 18 April 1480 – 24 June 1519) was a Spanish-Italian noblewoman of the House of Borgia who was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei. She reigned as the Govern ...

– as his first daughter, Alfonso named her after his mother

Eleanor of Naples Eleanor of Naples (Leonora or Eleonora of Aragon; 22 June 1450 – 11 October 1493) was Duchess of Ferrara by marriage to Ercole I d'Este. She was the first duchess of Ferrara, and mother of many famous Renaissance figures. She was a well known p ...

Life

She was brought up in Ferrara and her mother died when she was four – her father had two more children with Laura Dianti. Eleonora was the only one of Alfonso and Lucrezia's daughters to survive both their parents. She became a nun at the Corpus Domini Monastery and was buried there alongside her mother and other members of her family.

''Musica quinque vocum motetta materna lingua vocata''

In 1543,

Girolamo Scotto Girolamo Scotto (Hieronymus Scotus; also Gerolamo) (c.1505 – 3 September 1572) was an Italian printer, composer, businessman and bookseller of the Renaissance, active mainly in Venice. He was the most influential member of the firm of Venetian ...

of Venice published a collection of 43 religious motets under the title ''Musica quinque vocum motetta materna lingua vocata''. There is no indication in that publication as to who the composer might have been. Laurie Stras, professor of music at

Southampton University , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

, has argued that Leonora may have been the composer. Leonora was triply disqualified from being named in those days: being a woman, and a princess, and a nun.

References

Sources

*http://viaf.org/viaf/95313383 *Sarah Bradford: ''Lucrezia Borgia.'' Mondadori Editore, Milan (2005), ()

External links

* – which wrongly assigns the vocal parts as "cantus, altus, tenor, bassus" only, even though it correctly says that the motets are for ''five'' unaccompanied voices; "quinque" in the title is unambiguous * {{DEFAULTSORT:Deste, Eleonora 1515 births 1575 deaths 16th-century Italian Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns

Eleonora Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It is the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. The name was introd ...

People from Ferrara