813 



ESTE, HOUSE OF. 



ESTHER 



814 



brotherly affection, and, in order to secure the succession to them 

 after bis death, he abstained from marrying. In 1452 Borso received 

 from the emperor Frederic III. the titles of Duke of Modena and 

 Reggio and Count of Rovigo ; and in 1471 Pope Paul II. gave him the 

 title of Duke of Ferrara, upon which town the Roman see claimed a 

 right of patronage. Borso died soon after, leaving a large and 

 prosperous state to his brother Ercole. 



His successor Ercole I. was likewise a man of considerable talents 

 and a patron of literature. He was also remarkable for that wary and 

 cautious policy which has been stigmatised as peculiarly Italian, but 

 which was in reality indispensable to the Italian princes in order to 

 protect themselves from the overbearing violence of foreign invaders, 

 after Ludovico Sforza through ambition committed the suicidal act of 

 calling the French into Italy. Ercole checked the fury of Louis XII., 

 who, after he had driven the Sforzas from Milan, was bent on exter- 

 minating all the other Italian princes. Ercole was fond of travelling : 

 he visited the various Italian courts, and encouraged tournaments, 

 festivals, and hunting parties. He gave the first theatrical entertain- 

 ments exhibited at Ferrara, where the Menajchmi of Plautus was per- 

 formed in 1486. His court was frequented by Bojardo, Collenuccio, 

 Tibaldeo, Guarino of Verona, and other learned men of his time. He 

 caused nmny Greek manuscripts to be translated, and had a Hebrew 

 press established at Ferrara in 1476. 



Alfonco I., son of Ercole, succeeded him in 1505. He married the 

 daughter of Pope Alexander VI. [BORGIA, LUCBIZIA.] Alfonso had 

 a long and troubled reign. He was attacked by Julius II. and the 

 Venetians ; he lost Modena and Reggio, and the Venetians also 

 threatened Ferrara The death of Julius afforded him some respite. 

 Leo X. continued to withhold Reggio and Modena from him, and 

 made also an attempt to surprise Ferrara. Alfonso displayed conside- 

 rable abilities and great perseverance. He and his brother, Cardinal 

 Ippolito, the patron of Ariosto, often took the field in person : their 

 artillery was the best served in Europe; and they defeated the 

 Venetians. After the death of Leo X., Alfonso, who had till then 

 sided with the French, made his peace with Charles V., who by an 

 imperial decree dated 21st April 1531, confirmed the rights of the 

 liouae of Este over Modena, Reggio, and Rubiera, upon the duke 

 paying him 150,000 sequins; and thus Alfonso was restored to the 

 potsession of those states. Alfonso died in 1534 and was succeeded 

 by Ercole II., and the latter by Alfonso II., who is unfavourably 

 known by the misfortunes of Tasso, which however the poet in a great 

 measure brought upon himself. [TASSO.] Alfonso II. dying in 

 October 1597, without issue, Pope Clement VIII. immediately sent 

 Cardinal Aldobrandino with troops to take possession of Ferrara us 

 having devolved to the see of Rome, which had first invested Borso 

 with the title of Duke. Cesare d'Kstc, Alfonso's cousin and heir, 

 entrusted Lucrezia, Alfonso's sister, with full power to negociate. 

 Lucr*-zia, who had hated the Marquis of Montecchio, son of Alfonso I. 

 and father to Cesare, on account of the share he had taken in the 

 transactions of 1575 relative to Tasso, disliked Cesare also. Cardinal 

 Aldobraudino having offered her the title and revenues of Duchess of 

 Bertiuoio in the Komagna, she signed a hasty convention, by which 

 she gave up in the name of the house of Este, Ferrara, Comacchio, 

 and their dependencies, to the see of Rome. Cesare transferred his 

 court to Modena, and Lucrezia died at Ferrara a few days after the 

 entrance of the Papal troops, in February 1598. The city of Ferrara, 

 which, under the house of Este, had a population of 60,0(JO inhabitants, 

 gradually became reduced to 20,000. 



Cesare, duke of Modeua and R-ggio, died in 1628. His sou 

 Alfonso III., who had remained as hostage at Ferrara, had shown in 

 his youth marks of a violent disposition. In 1619 he caused Ercole 

 PepoU to be assassinated at Ferrara. Stung by remorse, he abdicated 

 the ducal throne soon after his father's death, and became a Franciscan 

 monk. He distinguished himself as a zealous preacher, and founded 

 several convents. He died in 1644, iu a convent which he had founded in 

 the mountains of Garlagnana. His sou Francis I. affected a great zeal 

 for religion, had his food scrupulously weighed on fast days, and he 

 sentenced a relative of Marshal Gassion to be shot for want of proper 

 respect while at church. He first separated the Jews from the rest 

 of the population at Modena in 1630, and confined them to the Ghetto. 

 He began the magnificent ducal palace at Modena as well as the 

 country residence and gardens at Sassuolo. His successor, Alfonso IV., 

 received in 1660 of the emperor Leopold the investiture of the prin- 

 cipality of Correggio, which he had previously purchased. Alfonso 

 loved the fine arts, and he waa the founder of the Esta gallery of 

 paintings. He left at his death a son two years old, who was after- 

 wards duke by the name of Francis II. During bis minority his 

 mother, Laura Martinozzi, Cardinal Mazarin's niece, held the govern- 

 ment. She collected together all the bad characters in her dominions, 

 and delivered them over to the Venetians, who employed them in the 

 war of Candia against the Turks. Francis II. founded the university 

 of Modeta, a well as the splendid library called Estense, of which 

 Zaccaria, Muratori, and Tiraboschi were successively librarians. 

 Francis II. dying in 1694 without issue, was succeeded by his uncle, 

 Cardinal Rinaldo, who, after resigning his hat, married a daughter of 

 the Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg, and sister-in-law to the emperor 

 Joseph I. By this marriage the two branches of Eate and Brunswick 

 which had been separated since 1070, became again connected. 



During tlie war of the Spanish succession, the Duke Riualdo, notwith- 

 standing his professed neutrality, was obliged by the French to quit 

 Modeua and to take shelter at Rome. The victorious Austrians, com- 

 manded by Prince Eugene of Savoy, restored him to his dominions, 

 where he resided quietly till 1733, when the war for the succession to 

 the crown of Poland, in which Italy had no concern wh;it j ver, but for 

 which Italy was as usual devastated by the belligerents, obliged 

 Kinaldo again to leave hi< territories, which became the battle-field 

 between the French and Piedmonte^e on one side, and the Austrians 

 on the other. In 1736 Rinaldo returned to Modena. Hia repeated 

 misfortunes affected and perhaps improved his disposition : he becamo 

 serious and economical after having been inclined to pomp and mag- 

 nificence. He enlarged his dominions by the purchase of the duchy 

 of Mirandola and the county of Bagnolo. Rinaldo was succeeded iu 

 1537 by his son Francis III., who was serving iu Hungary against 

 the Turks at the time. During the war of the Austrian succession he 

 took part for the house of Bourbon, and commanded the Spanish 

 armies in Italy. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle restored him to the 

 quiet possession of his dominions. In 1754 Duke Francis was appointed 

 by Maria Theresa governor of Lombardy during the minority of her 

 son the Archduke Ferdinand, who was betrothed to the Duke's grand- 

 daughter Beatrice d'Este, a child then four years old. In 1771 

 Francis gave up his trust to the Archduke Ferdinand, but continued 

 to reside in Lombardy, and died at Varese in 1780. His son Ercole 

 Rinaldo, the father of Beatrice, succeeded him aa duke of Modena. 

 Hia administration was peaceful and economical. He was ever 

 watchful against the temporal interference of the court of Rome in 

 his dominions; and he was equally averse to the remains of feudality 

 which still lingered in his states. When the French entered Italy in 

 1796, the duke made a convention with Bonaparte, paid a heavy con- 

 tribution, gave up some valuable paintings, but not trusting to the 

 faith of the conqueror, he withdrew to Venice with his treasures, 

 leaving a council of regency at Modena. An insurrection excited at 

 Reggio by some Corsican soldiers in the French service afforded a 

 pretext to Bonaparte to violate the convention, and to occupy the 

 states of Modena, which were afterwards annexed to the Cisalpine 

 republic. (Botfci, 'Storia d'ltalia; Paridisi, 'Luttere a Carlo Botta.') 

 When in the following year the French occupied Venice, the duke 

 bad escaped to Trieste, but a deposit of 200,000 sequins which he had 

 left behind waa seized. Ercole Rinaldo died in the Austrian States 

 hi 1803. His daughter Maria Beatrice, the last offspring of the house 

 of Bate, lost her husband, the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, iu the 

 year 1800, and their eldest son, Francis IV., was restored by the peace 

 of Paris in 1814 to the dominions of his maternal ancestors, namely, 

 the duchy of Modena, Reggio, and their dependencies, including tlie 

 district of Garfagnana, on the borders of Lucca. By the death of his 

 mother he also inherited the duchy of Massa and Carrara, of which 

 his grandmother, of the house of Cibo Malaspina, was the heiress. He 

 died January 21, 1846, and was succeeded in all his titles and 

 possessions by his son Francis V. 



ESTHER was the orphan cousin and adopted daughter of Mordecai, 

 descended from a Benjamite family of the Babylonian captives of Nebu- 

 chadnezzar (Esther, ii. 5-7). The place of her residence was in the city 

 Shusan, or Susa, now SUB (not Shuster, as stated by Dr. Adam Clarke 

 see ' Trans. Geog. Soc.,' vol. iii.), which, throughout the book, is in 

 English mistranslated ' Shushan the palace,' though, in the Septuagmt 

 version, it is rightly iv Soixrois rij ir<$\f i, that is, ' in Suaa the city." 

 The monarch, Ahasuerus (chap, i.), after having entertained all Lis 

 nobles and princes with sumptuous festivity during more than six 

 months, gave a great feast in his palace-garden to all the men of Susa, 

 great and small, while the women were separately feasted by the 

 queen iu the royal house. To the meu roynl wine was supplied iu 

 abundance, and the drinking was according to every mau's pleasure; 

 when the king, being on the seventh day inen-y with wine, sent his 

 seven chamberlains with orders to bring the queen to exhibit herself 

 before his guests ; but Vasbti (which in Persian means the beauti- 

 fully fair) refusing to come (the command was improper), he was very 

 wroth, and his anger burned within him. Ahasuerus however punished 

 her by degradation and banishment, and by his royal mandate letters 

 were despatched to the people of each province, decreeing that every 

 man bear rule in his own house. To furnish the royid harem with 

 the greatest means of choice, there was made throughout the empire 

 (ch. ii.) a general levy of the fairest virgins ; and Esther, the beautiful 

 young Jewess, being preferred by Hege, the keeper of the king's 

 women, before all others of the numerous assemblage, she succeeded 

 to the place of the banished queen Vashti. The twelve months' 

 coametical purification of the maidens previous to their admission to 

 the king (ver. 12). was required, says Dr. CUrke, "to show if they 

 were with child, that the monarch might not be imposed on by 

 fathering a spurious offspring ; and because many having been brought 

 up in low life, and fed on coarse, strong, and indigestible food, they 

 had a copious and strongly-odorous perspiration, which was far from 

 pleasant." Esther's foster-father, Mordecai the Jew (chap, iii.), having 

 refused to do reverence to Haman, the chief minister and favourite of 

 Ahasuerus, he, with all the other Jews from Bibylon then dispersed 

 throughout the Persian empire, were by Hainan devoted to destruction, 

 and the royal mandate being accordingly issued ''to destroy, to kill, 

 and to cause to perish all Jews, young and old, little children and 



