Duchess of Ferrara, chief administrator of ducal building projects and castle fortification in Ferrara, renowned patron of literature and the arts At the age of twenty-three, Eleonora d’Aragona, daughter of King Ferrante of Naples and Isabella di Chiaromonte, married Ercole d’Este I, duke of Ferrara. Her wedding procession was conducted from Naples through Rome, Siena, and Florence and included approximately fourteen hundred attendants, including the Italian poet Matteo Maria Boiardo and the Italian playwright Niccolo da Correggio. Upon her arrival in Ferrara, Eleonora was received by Ercole I’s mother, Rizzarda da Saluzzo. The marriage alliance was advantageous for the Ferrarese because Eleonora’s royal lineage outranked her husband’s family title. The marriage conveyed great prestige, honor, and income to the court and renewed the ties between Ferrara and Naples that previously had been established with the marriage of Maria d’Aragona (Eleonora’s aunt) and Leonello d’Este. Eleonora’s marriage to Ercole also brought renewed hope for the continuity of the Este dynasty, because Ercole’s predecessor, Borso d’Este, had never had a wife or children.
The duchess quickly fulfilled her wifely duty, bearing seven children with Ercole: Isabella (b. 1474); Beatrice (b. 1475); Alfonso I (b. 1476), who became the Duke of Ferrara, Reggio, and Modena; Ferrante (born 1477); Ip-polito (b. 1479), who became a cardinal in 1493;Sigismondo (b. 1480); and Alberto (14811482). Eleonora paid great attention to their rearing and education, particularly influencing her daughters’ patronage of artists, musicians, scholars, and poets.
Eleonora often controlled the Ferrarese court administration while her husband was at war or on diplomatic visits. In September 1476, while Eleonora remained at home with three children, Ercole’s nephew, Niccolo, invaded Ferrara in an attempted coup. Eleonora escaped from the palace apartments with her children to the more fortified castle (Castel Vecchio), not only saving herself but protecting the lives of her children—most important, the male heir to the court. As a consequence, the duke and duchess began major building projects in the castle for increased security in February 1477, including a suite of rooms and loggia for Eleonora. In another notable incident during the War of Venice in 1482, Eleonora maintained economic and social stability when Ercole became ill. She quelled rumors of the duke’s impending death, encouraged citizens to remain faithful to Ercole, and raised the Ferrarese spirits by allowing the people to view the recovering duke in his bed (Rosenberg 1997,125-126). In addition, Eleo-nora effectively managed household affairs and assisted her husband in daily administration, including his architectural projects and diplomatic and political affairs.
The duchess was a patron and collector. She is known to have commissioned works by Cosme Tura and Ercole de’ Roberti, as well an extensive number of devotional works, some by leading artists of the day, including Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini. Besides paintings, the duchess donated funds and maintained interest in architectural projects, including the rebuilding of the Clarissian monastery of Corpus Domini (Tuohy 1996, 373) and the convent of S. Gabriele (Tuohy 1996, 377). In addition to her own patronage, other works of art and literature were produced for her or dedicated to her, including illuminated manuscripts, frescoes, panel paintings, and works of literature. The duchess was highly regarded for her piety. Her own religious devotion is cited as an influence on her husband’s religious fervor. She maintained her own oratory and cell at the monastery of Corpus Domini and often visited there for retreats. Although the majority of titles in her library were devotional works, it appears that Eleonora was interested in illustrious women in both art and literature. Bartolommeo Goggio wrote De laudibus mulierum for Eleonora in the 1480s, focusing on the exploits of famous women from antiquity. This work was known for its protofeminist attitude (Manca 2003, 88). Antonio Cornazzano dedicated Del modo di regere e di regnare (On How to Rule and to Reign) to Eleonora, likely around a time she was acting as regent between September 1478 and October 1479, while her husband was away from Ferrara. While providing much of the typical advice about the conduct of a ruler and the qualities needed for governing, such as wisdom and strength, this tome was unusual for its genre in that it specifically related to female leadership. Now lost frescoes at Belfiore, as described by Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti in 1497, also portrayed atypical subject matter for the time period, that of a contemporary female ruler. These frescoes depicted Eleonora during her triumphal entry into Ferrara and her wedding festivities.
Before her death, she requested to be buried barefoot, wearing penitential robes, in a simple grave, without fanfare. Eleonora died on 11 October 1493 at the age of forty-three and was buried in the monastery of Corpus Domini.
Martha Ahrendt
See also Art and Women; Education, Humanism, and Women; the subheading Literary Patronage (under Literary Culture and Women); Music and Women.
Bibliography
Chiappini, Luciano. Eleonora d’Aragona, prima duchessa di Ferrara. Rovigo: S. T.E. R., 1956.
Chiappini, Luciano. Gli Estensi. Milan: Dall’Oglio, 1967.
Gardner, Edmund. Dukes and Poets in Ferrara.
New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1968.
Gundersheimer, Werner. “Women, Learning, and Power: Eleonora of Aragon and the Court of Ferrara.” In Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past. Edited by Patricia H. La-Balme, 43—65. New York: New York University Press, 1980.
Manca, Joseph. “Constantia et forteza: Eleonora d’Aragon’s Famous Matrons.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 19, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 13-20.
Manca, Joseph. “Isabella’s Mother: Aspects of the Patronage of Eleonora d’Aragona.” Aurora:The Journal of the History of Art 4 (2003): 79-94.
Rosenberg, Charles. The Este Monuments and
Urban Development in Renaissance Ferrara. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Tuohy, Thomas. Herculean Ferrara: Ercole d’Este 1471—1505, and the Invention of the Ducal Capital. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
World History
