ESTE ESTHOMA. 



99 



the whole province of Ferrara. He enclosed this 

 fleet, which ascended the river, within the fire of his 

 batteries constructed on both banks, captured part, 

 and burnt the rest : this victory was commemorated 

 by the most celebrated Italian poets. Pope Julius 

 II. abandoned the league of Cambray, and joined the 

 Venetians ; he laid Alfonso, whom he could not 

 persuade to follow his example, under an interdict,, 

 and declared all his papal fiefs forfeited. By this 

 measure of Julius, Alfonso lost Modena, and was 

 deserted by his allies. The French, however, con- 

 tinued in their alliance with him, and he contributed 

 to the victory which they gained at Ravenna in 

 1512. But, the French being soon after obliged to 

 leave Italy, Alfonso stood alone. Meanwhile Julius 

 died; but his successor, Leo X., refused to restore 

 to Alfonso the cities of Modena and Reggie, which 

 Francis I., who favoured the house of Este, had 

 obliged him to promise. The papal court even 

 attempted the assassination of the duke, by the 

 captain of his guard. Alfonso, thus menaced on 

 all sides, was preparing to defend himself, when the 

 death of Leo X. (1521) delivered the house of Este 

 from the impending ruin. Adrian VI. revoked the 

 censures of the church; but Clement VII., his 

 successor, seemed to have inherited the hatred of his 

 uncle Leo ; he kept Alfonso out of possession of 

 Modena, and even endeavoured to deprive him of 

 his other states. Soon afterwards, the capture of 

 Rome (1527) enabled the emperor Charles V. to 

 restore to him his ancient possessions, and to con- 

 firm the claims of the house of Este. Alfonso 

 excelled all the Italian princes of his time, in uniting 

 military glory with political talents ; none of them 

 was surrounded by more distinguished men, and none 

 has been celebrated by nobler poets ; among whom 

 Ariosto is the most illustrious. 



His successor, Ercole II. (died 1559), was attached 

 to Charles V., who, by his great preponderance, sub- 

 jected all Italy to his influence. His brother Ippo- 

 lito, at Rome, on the contrary, was attached to the 

 French interest. This cardinal, who built the splen- 

 did villa d'Este, at Tivoli, was the most munificent 

 patron of the arts and sciences of that age. 



Alfonso II. (died 1597) inherited, it is true,, from 

 his ancestors, a love of letters, but a still greater 

 fondness for pomp and luxury. His disputes with 

 the grand duke of Tuscany, regarding the prece- 

 dency, and his efforts to obtain the crown of Poland, 

 which involved him in great expense, occupied his 

 whole political career. His finances were exhausted, 

 and his subjects burdened with taxes. The first 

 poets, and most distinguished men of Italy, con- 

 tinued, however, to adorn his court ; but the per- 

 secutions of Tasso suggest only melancholy or dis- 

 graceful recollections for the house of Este. The 

 seven years which the poet passed in a mad house, 

 either for having dared to love the princess Leonora, 

 sister of the duke, or because, in the excess of his 

 passion, he had so far forgot himself as to offend the 

 pride of his sovereign, bear witness to the cruelty of 

 Alfonso. Although he was married three times, he 

 was childless ; and he appointed his cousin Caesar 

 (died 1628) son of a natural son of Alfonso I., his 

 successor. 



On Caesar's accession to the dukedom, pope Cle- 

 ment VIII. declared the choice to have been illegal, 

 and all the papal fiefs held by the house of Este to 

 ha'/e reverted to the church. Cassar possessed so 

 little firmness of character, that he immediately 

 yielded to the menaces and armies of the pope, and 

 surrendered Ferrara, together with the other eccle- 

 siastical fiefs. Fortunately, the emperor did not dis- 

 pute his succession to the imperial fiefs ; he remained 

 in possession of Modena and Reargio, but was 



obliged to dispute the possession of Garfagnano in 

 two wars with the republic of Lucca, until tin- 

 contest was finally settled by the mediation of 

 Spain. 



The violent temper of his son and successor, Al- 

 fonso III., at first excited apprehensions of a cruel 

 and tyrannical reign ; but the death of his wife, Isa. 

 bella of Savoy, to whom he was warmly attached, 

 effected such a change in his character, that he 

 resigned the government into the hands of his eldest 

 son, Francis, and retired to a capuchin monastery in 

 the Tyrol, under the name of Giovanni Battista of 

 Modena, where he passed his days in religious medi- 

 tation and acts of piety. 



Since the loss of Ferrara, the house of Este lias 

 been distinguished only for its ancient splendour. 

 Francis I., son of Alfonso III., died in 1658 ; Alfonso 

 IV., in 1662 ; Francis II., in 1694 : Rinaldo I. died 

 in 1737. The last mentioned prince, who was in 

 early life a cardinal, married Charlotte Felicitas of 

 Brunswick, daughter of the duke of Hanover, and 

 thus reunited the two branches of the house of Este, 

 which had been divided since 1070. His son Fran- 

 cis III. (died 1780) deserves to be mentioned as a 

 patron of literature. Muratori and Tiraboschi were 

 his subjects, and received pensions from him. Ercole 

 III., the last duke of Modena, Reggio, and Miran- 

 dola, married his only daughter, Maria Beatrice, to 

 the archduke Ferdinand of Austria : a fruit of this 

 marriage was the second wife of Francis of Austria. 

 Ercole had accumulated great treasures, but lost th*> 

 affections of his subjects, and, on the approach of tl e 

 French armies, in 1796, he fled to Venice. Modtna 

 and Reggio were included in the Cisalpine confed- 

 eracy (republic), and the house of Este was defini- 

 tively deprived of the sovereignty by the treaty of 

 Campo-Formio, Oct. 17, 1797. See Modena. 



ESTHER ; originally a Jewish girl, a prisoner in 

 Persia. Her beauty gained her the love, and made her 

 the queen, of the king Ahasuerus. Her intercession 

 delivered the Jews from a general proscription, to 

 which they had been subjected by Haman, a minister 

 and favourite of the king. The history of this event 

 is the subject of the book of Esther. Many writers 

 suppose that this Ahasuerus is the Artaxerxes of the 

 Greeks. There are many different suppositions 

 respecting the author of the book of Esther. 



ESTHETICS. See Esthetics. 



ESTHONIA, or the GOVERNMENT OF REVAL ; 

 the northern part of the Russian province of Livonia, 

 consisting of above 8000 square miles, and containing 

 above 390,000 inhabitants. Though much of its soil is 

 sandy, it produces grain, hemp, flax, cattle, horses, 

 &c. Reval is the capital, which lies in a small bay 

 of the Finnish Gulf, and contains about 15,000 inha- 

 bitants. The islands of Daign, Vorms, and Nuckn 

 belong to this government. The former is about 

 forty miles long, and from twenty-six to thirty-six 

 broad, and has a population of about 10,000. Es- 

 thonia is in general a flat country, here and there 

 broken with small eminences. 



The Esthonians, a Finnish tribe, anciently belonged 

 to the Russian monarchy, and were called Tschuds. 

 They afterwards attempted to deliver themselves from 

 the Russian yoke ; and, after 1385, when the country 

 was sold to the Teutonic knights, it made a part of 

 Livonia, with which, after being 100 years subject to 

 Sweden, it reverted to Russia. Under Catharine II., 

 it received the name of the government of Reval, but, 

 in 1797, was again called the government of Esthonia. 

 Much has been written on the unhappy situation ol 

 the serfs in Livonia and Esthonia. The Esthonians 

 live in mean habitations, are rough and hardy, and 

 profess the Christian religion. The following cut 

 represents the costume of the peasantry : 



