Luigi d'Este
Luigi d'Este (born December 25, 1538 in Ferrara , † December 30, 1586 in Rome ) was an Italian cardinal .
biography
Luigi, the fifth and last child, was the second son of the Duke of Ferrara Ercole II d'Este and his wife Princess Renée de France , daughter of Louis XII. of France and Anne de Bretagne . Her paternal grandparents were Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia , daughter of Pope Alexander VI. His older brother Alfonso II d'Este inherited the Duchy of Ferrara .
Equipped with a proud and independent character, he would have been suitable for anything but church life. However, the "law of the second-born" provided that he wore the cassock, and however much Luigi rebelled, he was placed under the care of the strict Nicolò Tassoni as a child, who was to form him in view of his impending appointment as cardinal. Luigi was taught by Bartolomeo Ricci da Lugo, a respected philologist, rhetorician, grammarian and profound knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, Francesco Porto as a Greek master, while astronomy and moral philosophy were imparted to him by Giambattista Nicolucci. Religion was mediated by the French Jesuit Pelletier, specifically sent by Ignatius of Loyola . His passion for Italian literature goes back to his studies.
Only his mother was indulgent to her son's sufferings, while Ercole, his uncle Ippolito II and his brother Alfonso were ready for any attack to break the young man's resistance and strengthen the decisive alliance with the Holy See. So one day Ippolito and Ercole took Luigi to the villa of Sabbioncello with the intention of bringing him back to his senses. It appears that a heated argument arose in which Luigi sustained an injury to the eyeball that left him cross-eyed for life.
On May 1, 1550, Julius III authorized Cardinal Salviati, to renounce the diocese of Ferrara in favor of Luigi, which was to be taken over only after Salviati's death. When Salviati died in October 1553, Luigi's successor was confirmed in a letter dated May 28, 1551. Due to the young age, Luigi was declared administrator of the church until he was 25 years old, and Count Tassoni was appointed to him as administrator in secular affairs and the Bishop of Comacchio A. Rossetti as administrator in spiritual affairs.
Influenced by the secular principles of the Renaissance and the cultural and artistic environment, Luigi developed a personality who was alien to the demands placed on a Renaissance prelate. This earned him repeated reprimands from his teachers and relatives. In 1556, attracted by the offers of Cardinal L. Madruzzo , he tried to travel secretly to Spain to serve King Philip II . After the plot was discovered, Luigi was stopped near Mantua , brought back to Ferrara on November 12, 1556, and imprisoned in the castle on the orders of the duke. Under pressure from the King of France, he was released but placed under strict supervision by his father. After relations with the duke and uncle deteriorated further, he decided to travel to France with the support of his mother. On July 13, 1558, he secretly left Ferrara and traveled to his brother Alfonso. As the grandson of Louis XII. , Cousin of King Henry II and brother-in-law of the powerful Duke of Guisa , he was welcomed at the French court more as a relative than an Italian prince. Luigi strove to marry Mary of Bourbon, but the efforts were in vain. At the urging of his brother, who had meanwhile become duke, and under pressure from the French court, which wanted to have its own representative in the Holy College, he returned to Ferrara in May 1560. On 26 February 1561 Pope appointed him Pius IV. To the Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church . Luigi never wanted to be ordained a priest and remained a deacon .
With the XXXV. At the meeting of the Council of Trent, Luigi was given the rich archdiocese of Auch . However, he retained all the advantages of the Diocese of Ferrara and undertook to pay his successor Alfonso Rossetti a pension of 1,000 Scudi . In the following years, Luigi devoted himself to the complex management of his inheritance. To fulfill his father's last wishes, he had the Palazzo dei Diamanti completed in 1567. He often went to Ferrara, where he had a relationship with Lucrezia Bendidio , who in 1562 married Count Baldassarre Macchiavelli, and where he found solace in the affection of his sister Leonora. It is also said that it was during his stay in Ferrara that he met the soprano Mantovano Livia d'Arco , who after a series of meetings became his mistress and was referred to by the Ferraris as the courtesan Livia.
Those were the years when Torquato Tasso served him. The young poet dedicated Rinaldo to him in 1562 . He accompanied him on a transalpine journey in 1570 before he left his entourage and tried unsuccessfully to get into the service of Ippolito II and Francesco Maria della Rovere , and finally put himself in the service of Alfonso II.
On January 19, 1571, Luigi traveled to France for the second time. The main goal was to settle church services in the kingdom, which existed in eleven abbeys in addition to the archdiocese of Auch. In May 1572 he had to leave Paris because of the death of Pius V. However, he did not take part in the conclave that took place on the way to Rome.
On February 23, 1573, Luigi received a mandate from the King of France, with which he was awarded the title of "Protector of the Crown at the Papal Court" and guaranteed the granting of French ecclesiastical services. As the protector of the French crown, Luigi zealously defended the interests of France and earned the esteem of the French ambassadors and the ruler. Gregory XIII. also made him the governor of Tivoli.
The Duchy of Ferrara was threatened because of the lack of heirs from Alfonso. The only way for the Este family to sustain Ferrara was to "grow up" with the acquisition of a small kingdom. The favorable occasion seemed to come with the extinction of the Jagelloni and the associated extinction of the Polish crown. Lugi's trip to Paris, where he arrived on August 16, 1573, was useless, however, since Heinrich von Anjou, with his unexpected coronation as King of Poland, brought the ambitious project to failure.
After his return he finally settled in the Papal States and inherited the Villa d'Este from his uncle , where Michel de Montaigne received in 1581 . The years in Tivoli were essentially marked by secular diversions. It was not uncommon for Leonora to have to help her brother financially. Luigi had the villa restored, ruled the city discreetly and made connections with the Jesuits , which brought him numerous advantages.
Luigi's last marriage project is also linked to the needs of the house. In 1581 Alfonso asked him, after three marriages without an heir, to marry him to prevent the expulsion of the Estonians from Ferrara. The cardinal made several reservations: the precarious state of his health, the difficulty of obtaining exemption from the Pope, and the economic damage that would result from abandoning ecclesiastical custom. However, the Pope's outright refusal to grant the necessary dispensations ended this attempt.
At the conclave of 1585 he played a key role and was able to achieve a unanimous consensus that brought Sixtus V to the papal throne. In addition to worldly expenses, Luigi did his best with sincere charity for the poor. In Tivoli he left the reputation of a magnanimous and pious prince. He fortified the city walls, restored bridges and roads.
He died in Rome in 1586 and bequeathed all of his property to his brother Alfonso II. D'Este . Luigi d'Este was buried in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore (commonly known as San Francesco) in Tivoli .
literature
- Paolo Portone: ESTE, Luigi d '. In: Fiorella Bartoccini (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 43: Enzo – Fabrizi. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1993.
Web links
- Entry on Luigi d'Este on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on May 15, 2019.
- Luigi d'Este. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website, English)
References and comments
- ↑ Vincenzo Pacifici: Luigi d'Este . In: Atti e Memorie della Società Tiburtina di Storia e d'Arte . IX-X (1929-30), pp. 3–128 (Italian, societatiburtinastoriaarte.it [PDF]).
- ↑ L. Chiappini: Gli Estensi . Dall'Oglio, Milan 1967, p. 273 (Italian).
- ↑ Paolo Portone, Dictionnaire Biografico degli Italiani
- ↑ L. Chiappini, cit., P. 274
- ↑ Vittorio Baldini: Deuotissime orationi ch'ogni notte, Oltre il diuino Offitio, soleua dire la fe. me. Dell'illustriss. et reuerrndiss Sig. Cardinal d'Este . 1588 ( societatiburtinastoriaarte.it [PDF] Second reprint, Tivoli 2013).
- ↑ The sources disagree on the way, as the last name of the count is written: The variant Machiavelli is prevalent, but is often referred to as Machiavelli called
- ↑ L. Chiappini, cit., P. 275
- ↑ Roberto Tognoll: Hippolita Torelli . In: La Reggia . December 2000 (Italian, societapalazzoducalemantova.it [PDF]).
- ^ L. Tonelli: Tasso . Paravia, Turin 1935, p. 89 (Italian).
- ↑ L. Chiappini, cit. Pp. 275-277
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Ippolito II d'Este |
Bishop of Ferrara ( Apostolic Administrator ) 1550 |
Alfonso Rossetti |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Este, Luigi d ' |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian cardinal of the Roman Church |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 25, 1538 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ferrara |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 30, 1586 |
| Place of death | Rome |