Castello Estense
With its moat, hefty brick walls, drawbridges, heavy gates, and four sturdy towers, the domain of the Este family still suggests power and might, just as it was intended to do. Niccolò II d’Este ordered the castle built in 1385 as a place of refuge when his subjects became restless after a series of tax increases and quite literally tore one of his officials to pieces; a long, elevated gallery links the castle to the family’s onetime residence, now the Palazzo Municipale, next door. Duke Niccolò d’Este III forever made the castle a place of infamy when, in 1425, he used a contrivance of mirrors to catch his 20-year-old wife, Parisina d’Este, in flagrante delicto with his illegitimate son, Ugolino, and had the pair taken to the dungeons and beheaded; Robert Browning tells the story in his poem “My Last Duchess.” (Ironically, Niccolò himself boasted of sleeping with 800 women and a popular rhyme of the time was “left and right of the river Po, everywhere there are children by Niccolò.”) Young Lucrezia Borgia, with her reputation for adultery, incest, and a poisoning or two, took up residence in 1502 as the wife of Duke Alfonso d’Este, who kept his half-brother, Giulio, in the dungeons for 53 years for plotting to overthrow him; the elderly man allegedly created quite a stir when he finally emerged onto the streets of Ferrara in the clothing he had brought with him into his cell half a century before. For all their perfidy, the Estes also hosted one of the finest courts in Europe and cultivated the Renaissance arts and humanities. The family’s refined tastes come to the fore in the frescoed Salone dell’Aurora (the Salon of Dawn) and Salone dei Giochi (the Salon of Games); the innovative, ramp-like, spiral staircase that ascends from the courtyard and allowed the dukes to ride their horses right up to their quarters; and an orangerie that continues to flourish on terraces high above the city.
With its moat, hefty brick walls, drawbridges, heavy gates, and four sturdy towers, the domain of the Este family still suggests power and might, just as it was intended to do. Niccolò II d’Este ordered the castle built in 1385 as a place of refuge when his subjects became restless after a series of tax increases and quite literally tore one of his officials to pieces; a long, elevated gallery links the castle to the family’s onetime residence, now the Palazzo Municipale, next door. Duke Niccolò d’Este III forever made the castle a place of infamy when, in 1425, he used a contrivance of mirrors to catch his 20-year-old wife, Parisina d’Este, in flagrante delicto with his illegitimate son, Ugolino, and had the pair taken to the dungeons and beheaded; Robert Browning tells the story in his poem “My Last Duchess.” (Ironically, Niccolò himself boasted of sleeping with 800 women and a popular rhyme of the time was “left and right of the river Po, everywhere there are children by Niccolò.”) Young Lucrezia Borgia, with her reputation for adultery, incest, and a poisoning or two, took up residence in 1502 as the wife of Duke Alfonso d’Este, who kept his half-brother, Giulio, in the dungeons for 53 years for plotting to overthrow him; the elderly man allegedly created quite a stir when he finally emerged onto the streets of Ferrara in the clothing he had brought with him into his cell half a century before. For all their perfidy, the Estes also hosted one of the finest courts in Europe and cultivated the Renaissance arts and humanities. The family’s refined tastes come to the fore in the frescoed Salone dell’Aurora (the Salon of Dawn) and Salone dei Giochi (the Salon of Games); the innovative, ramp-like, spiral staircase that ascends from the courtyard and allowed the dukes to ride their horses right up to their quarters; and an orangerie that continues to flourish on terraces high above the city.
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