Ercole I d'Este
KG (English: ''Hercules I''; 26 October 1431 – 25 January 1505) was
Duke of Ferrara
Emperor Frederick III conferred Borso d'Este, Lord of Ferrara, with the Duchy of Modena and Reggio in 1452, while Pope Paul II formally elevated him in 1471 as Duke of Ferrara, over which the family had in fact long presided. This latter territ ...
from 1471 until 1505. He was a member of the
House of Este
The House of Este ( , , ) is a European dynasty of North Italian origin whose members ruled parts of Italy and Germany for many centuries.
The original House of Este's elder branch, which is known as the House of Welf, included dukes of Bavaria ...
. He was nicknamed ''North Wind'' and ''The Diamond''.
Biography
Ercole was born in 1431 in
Ferrara to
Nicolò III and Ricciarda da Saluzzo. His maternal grandparents were
Thomas III of Saluzzo Thomas III of Saluzzo ( it, Tommaso III di Saluzzo) (1356–1416) was Marquess of Saluzzo from 1396 until his death.
He was born in Saluzzo in north-western Italy to Frederick II del Vasto and Beatrice of Geneva. His maternal grandfather was Hug ...
and Marguerite of
Roussy
Roussy-le-Village (; german: Rüttgen) is a commune in the Moselle department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.
See also
* Communes of the Moselle department
The following is a list of the 725 communes of the Moselle department of Fran ...
.
![Sperandio savelli, ercole I d'este, 1475 ca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Sperandio_savelli%2C_ercole_I_d%27este%2C_1475_ca._01.JPG)
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 an appreciation for
''all'antica'' architecture and the fine arts, which would result in his becoming one of the most significant art patrons of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
.
In 1471, with the support of the
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia, ...
, he became Duke on the death of his half-brother Borso, profiting from the absence of the latter's son, Niccolò, who was in Mantua.
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 the
War of Ferrara
The War of Ferrara (also known as the Salt War, Italian: ''Guerra del Sale'') was fought in 1482–1484 between Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and the Papal forces mustered by Ercole's personal nemesis, Pope Sixtus IV and his Venetian allies. ...
with the
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia, ...
, which was allied with Ercole's nemesis, the
Della Rovere
The House of Della Rovere (; literally "of the oak tree") was a noble family of Italy. It had humble origins in Savona, in Liguria, and acquired power and influence through nepotism and ambitious marriages arranged by two Della Rovere popes: F ...
Pope Sixtus IV, occasioned by disputes over control of the salt monopoly. Ercole was able to end the war by ceding the
Polesine
Polesine (; vec, label=unified Venetian script, Połéxine ) is a geographic and historic area in the north-east of Italy whose limits varied through centuries; it had also been known as Polesine of Rovigo for some time.
Nowadays it corresponds w ...
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
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
. He reluctantly agreed to the marriage of his son Alfonso to
Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope
Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI ( it, Alessandro VI, va, Alexandre VI, es, Alejandro VI; born Rodrigo de Borja; ca-valencia, Roderic Llançol i de Borja ; es, Rodrigo Lanzol y de Borja, lang ; 1431 – 18 August 1503) was head of the Catholic Churc ...
, a marriage that brought notable territorial donations.
![Sperandio,_ercole_I_e_eleonora_d'aragona,_1473_ca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Sperandio%2C_ercole_I_e_eleonora_d%27aragona%2C_1473_ca..JPG)
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.
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 and was successful in setting up a musical establishment which was for a few years the finest in Europe, overshadowing the Vatican chapel itself. For the next century Ferrara was to retain the character of a center of
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
music with a decidedly secular emphasis. In music history Ercole was one of the Italian nobles most responsible for bringing talented
Franco-Flemish
The designation Franco-Flemish School, also called Netherlandish School, Burgundian School, Low Countries School, Flemish School, Dutch School, or Northern School, refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition or ...
musicians to Italy. The most famous composers of Europe either worked for him, were commissioned by him, or dedicated music to him, including
Alexander Agricola
Alexander Agricola (; born Alexander Ackerman; – 15 August 1506) was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance writing in the Franco-Flemish style. A prominent member of the ''Grande chapelle'', the Habsburg musical establishment, he wa ...
,
,
Heinrich Isaac
Heinrich Isaac (ca. 1450 – 26 March 1517) was a Netherlandish Renaissance composer of south Netherlandish origin. He wrote masses, motets, songs (in French, German and Italian), and instrumental music. A significant contemporary of Josquin des ...
,
Adrian Willaert
Adrian Willaert ( – 7 December 1562) was a Flemish composer of High Renaissance music. Mainly active in Italy, he was the founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers ...
, and
Josquin des Prez, whose ''
Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae
The ''Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae'' is a setting of the Ordinary of the Mass composed by Josquin des Prez, and dedicated to Ercole d'Este I, Duke of Ferrara. The musical source material for the mass, the cantus firmus, is derived from the music ...
'' not only is dedicated to him, but is based on a theme drawn from the syllables of the Duke's name.
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
Biagio Rossetti ( 1447 – 1516) was an Italian architect and urbanist from Ferrara. A military engineer since 1483, and the ducal architect of Ercole I d'Este, in 1492 Rossetti was assigned the project of enlarging the city of Ferrara.
Rossett ...
for the work. Many of Ferrara's most famous buildings date from his reign.
Ercole was an admirer of church reformer
Girolamo Savonarola
Girolamo Savonarola, OP (, , ; 21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498) or Jerome Savonarola was an Italian Dominican friar from Ferrara and preacher active in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory, the destruction of ...
, 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.
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
''Infelix ego'' ("Alas, wretch that I am") is a Latin meditation on the ''Miserere'', Psalm 51 (Psalm 50 in Septuagint numbering), composed in prison by Girolamo Savonarola by 8 May 1498, after he was tortured on the rack, and two weeks before he ...
''. The result was the ''
Miserere'', probably first performed for Holy Week in 1504, with the tenor part possibly sung by the Duke himself.
Ercole died on 25 January 1505, and his son
Alfonso
Alphons (Latinized ''Alphonsus'', ''Adelphonsus'', or ''Adefonsus'') is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. ...
became Duke.
Appearance and personality
![Ludovico_coradino,_medaglia_di_ercole_d'este,_1473](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Ludovico_coradino%2C_medaglia_di_ercole_d%27este%2C_1473.JPG)
Hercules was a duke sincerely loved by his subjects, who repeatedly demonstrated it to him, both taking his defense against Niccolò di Leonello and at the time of the war with Venice, when they spontaneously took up arms to press the invader, sometimes against the will of Hercules himself.
He was magnanimous, beneficial, famous for his clemency: he offered forgiveness even to the same supporters of Niccolò, as long as they swore obedience to him, and very often pardoned those condemned to death (even in cases of ''lesa maiestatis)'' when they were already with the rope around their necks ready for hanging. The chronicler Caleffini describes him in fact as "a pitiful gentleman and to whom it pains to hurt every person". He was also concerned about the living conditions of the family of the condemned and sometimes left money to his wives and daughters so that they could support themselves with dignity. Not for this reason he was weak of pulse, indeed he punished criminals in person, as when in December 1475 he beat a drummer who had bothered a girl in church and imprisoned two other responsible squires.
He loved to dance very much, which he continued to do despite an injury to his foot, in addition to the already mentioned passions for music and singing, which he then transmitted to his children. Several times he found himself dying over the years, now because of the wound never completely healed, now for illness and now for suspected poisoning, and always recovered, sometimes treating himself in country residences or at the spa.
As a father he was very fond of his eldest daughter Isabella, to whom he reserved great attention, so much so that in 1479, finding himself fighting in Tuscany and having learned that the child, despite being only four years old, had already undertaken her studies, he rejoiced with his wife, but explicitly recommended that they not be "given bote" even by her mother if by chance she did not learn.
![ErcoleId'Este](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/ErcoleId%27Este.JPG)
In his youth he possessed a very impetuous character, which he manifested especially in war, in rides and duels, which he then transmitted to most of his children. Even at a more mature age he continued to always be at the forefront of the battles in which he took part, exposing himself to danger of life and sometimes receiving some wounds.
He loved jokes and buffoons and we know a singular episode in which, being the Carnival of 1478 and having as a guest in Ferrara the lord of Bologna
Giovanni Bentivoglio, he went out disguised in the streets of the city in the company of his guest, the brothers Sigismondo and Rinaldo and other courtiers to throw eggs to the ladies and ended up beating with certain other masked in the square.
Nevertheless, for his often icy and authoritarian character, aimed at profit rather than kinship or feeling, Hercules was called "cold much more than the tramontana" and from this derived his other nickname. He was a very devout man, he listened to Mass every day or even several times a day and on
Holy Thursday
Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday (also known as Great and Holy Thursday, Holy and Great Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Sheer Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, among other names) is the day during Holy Week that commemorates the Washing of the ...
he fed hundreds of poor people every year, serving his own meal in the great hall of the castle together with his brothers, and then washing the feet of the guests and giving them clothes and money. Together with his very religious wife he was protector of nuns and founder of convents.
As for his physical appearance,
Aliprando Caprioli describes him as "of the right and square stature; et very strong in person. he had a colorful face, clear blue eyes, and black hair". However, although blue eyes were frequent within the d'Este family, at least from the portraits that have remained of him it would seem to have possessed dark eyes.
Family and issue
![I figli di Ercole I d'Este](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/I_figli_di_Ercole_I_d%27Este.jpg)
Ercole and Eleonora had seven children:
*
Isabella
Isabella may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Isabella (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters
* Isabella (surname), including a list of people
Places
United States
* Isabella, Alabama, an unincorpor ...
(1474 - 1539), married
Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua
Francesco II (or IV) Gonzaga (10 August 1466 – ) was the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua from 1484 until his death.
Biography
Francesco was born in Mantua, the son of Marquess Federico I Gonzaga.
Francesco had a career as a condottiero a ...
.
*
Beatrice (1475 - 1497), married
Ludovico Sforza, future
Duke of Milan.
*
Alfonso
Alphons (Latinized ''Alphonsus'', ''Adelphonsus'', or ''Adefonsus'') is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. ...
(1476 - 1534), married Anna Maria Sforza and
Lucrezia Borgia.
*
Ferrante (1477 - 1540), thrown into prison by his brother Alfonso in 1506, where he died 34 years later.
*
Ippolito (1479 - 1520), cardinal.
*
Sigismondo (1480 - 1524).
*Alberto (1481 - 1482).
Ercole had three illegitimate children:
*Lorenzo, eldest son (of uncertain mother), died in 1471.
*Lucrezia d'Este (ca 1470 - 1516/18), married
.
*
Giulio (1478 - 1561).
In mass culture
* In ''
Prince of Foxes
''Prince of Foxes'' is a 1947 historical novel by Samuel Shellabarger, following the adventures of the fictional Andrea Orsini, a captain in the service of Cesare Borgia during his conquest of the Romagna.
Plot introduction
Andrea Zoppo, an Ita ...
'' (1949), Ercole is played by Joop van Hulzen.
* In ''Le grandi dame di casa d'Este'' (2004) by Diego Ronsisvalle, focused mainly on the figure of his wife Eleonora d'Aragona, Ercole is played by the Italian actor Daniele Valmaggi.
* In the television series French ''
Borgia'' (2011-2014), he is played by British actor
Michael Byrne.
See also
*
List of Dukes of Ferrara and of Modena
Emperor Frederick III conferred Borso d'Este, Lord of Ferrara, with the Duchy of Modena and Reggio in 1452, while Pope Paul II formally elevated him in 1471 as Duke of Ferrara, over which the family had in fact long presided. This latter territ ...
References
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*
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*
Footnotes
External links
Ercole's career as a condottiero
{{DEFAULTSORT:Este, Ercole 01 d'
1431 births
1505 deaths
Nobility from Ferrara
Ercole 1
Ercole 1
Ercole 1
Ercole 1
Knights of the Garter
15th-century Italian nobility
16th-century Italian nobility