Isabella d'Este
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Isabella d'Este (18 May 1474 - 13 February 1539) was one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance and a major cultural and political figure.
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[edit] Family
She was a daughter of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and Leonora of Naples, daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples, the Aragonese King of Naples, and Isabella of Taranto. Her younger sister was the equally famous Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan as consort to Lodovico Sforza. She was related by birth or marriage to almost every ruler in Italy and is known as "The First Lady of The Renaissance".
[edit] Biography
[edit] Education and early life
Isabella d'Este was well-educated in her youth, as her voluminous correspondence from Mantua reveals. The Este sisters were exposed to many of the new Renaissance ideas: later Isabella became a passionate, even greedy collector of Roman sculpture and commissioned modern sculptures in the antique style. It is also common knowledge, at least among collectors of coins and numismatists, that she was an avid collector of ancient coins. At the age of 16 she was married to Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. They were Ariosto's patrons while he was writing Orlando Furioso and both she and her husband were greatly influenced by Baldassare Castiglione, author of Il Cortigiano ('The Courtier') a model for aristocratic decorum for two hundred years, and it was at his suggestion that Giulio Romano was summoned to Mantua to enlarge the Castello and other buildings. Under her auspices the court of Mantua became one of the most cultured in Europe. Among the other important artists, writers, thinkers, and musicians being drawn to it were Raphael, Andrea Mantegna, and the composers Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Marchetto Cara. Her court sculptor was Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, who re-interpreted works of antiquity in small finely-finished and often partly gilded bronzes that earned him the nickname "L'Antico". She was painted twice by Titian, (see illustration at right), and Leonardo da Vinci's portrait drawing of her is at the Louvre. She was a keen musician herself, who considered stringed instruments, such as the lute, superior to winds, which were associated with vice and strife; she also considered poetry incomplete until it was set to music, and sought the most skilled composers of the day to complete the task.
[edit] Later life
After the death of her husband, Isabella ruled Mantua as regent for her child. She began to play an important role in Italian politics, steadily advancing Mantua's position. Her many important accomplishments include advancing Mantua to a Duchy and also obtaining a cardinalate for her younger son. She also showed great diplomatic and political skill in her negotiations with Cesare Borgia, who had dispossessed Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, the husband of her sister-in-law and intimate friend Elisabetta Gonzaga (1502).
