House of Este - Younger Branch, The Margraves of Este

Younger Branch, The Margraves of Este

All later generations of the Italian branch are descendants of Fulco d'Este. From 1171 on, his descendants were titled Margraves of Este.

Obizzo I (d. 1193), the first margrave, battled against Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. His nephew Azzo d'Este VI (1170–1212) became podestà of Mantua and Verona. In 1146 with the last of the Adelardi Ferrara passed as the dowry of his niece the Marchesella, to Azzo VI d'Este. Azzo VII Novello was nominated podestà for his lifetime in 1242.

The lordship of Ferrara was made hereditary by Obizzo II (d. 1293) who was proclaimed Lord of Ferrara in 1264, Lord of Modena 1288 and Lord of Reggio 1289. Ferrara being a papal fief, the Este family were given the position of hereditary papal vicars in 1332.

Ferrara became a significant center of culture under Niccolò d'Este III (1384–1441), who received several popes with great magnificence, especially Eugene IV, who held a Council here in 1438, later known as the Council of Florence.

His successors were Leonello (1407–1450) and Borso (1413–1471), who was elevated to Duke of Modena and Reggio by Emperor Frederick III in 1452 and in return received these duchies as imperial fiefs. In 1471 he received the duchy of Ferrara as papal fief from Pope Paul II, for which occasion splendid frescoes were executed at Palazzo Schifanoia.

Under Ercole (1431–1505), one of the most significant patrons of the arts in late 15th and early 16th century Italy, Ferrara grew into a cultural center, renowned especially for music; Josquin Des Prez worked for Duke Ercole, Jacob Obrecht came to Ferrara twice, and Antoine Brumel served as principal musician from 1505. Ercole's daughter Beatrice (1475–1497) married Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, while his daughter Isabella (1474–1539) married Francesco Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua.

Ercole I's successor was his son Alfonso I (1476–1534), third husband of Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, sister to Cesare Borgia and the patron of Ariosto.

Alfonso and Lucrezia Borgia's son Ercole d'Este II (1508–1559) married Renée of France, daughter of Louis XII of France. His son Alfonso II first married Lucrezia, daughter of grand-duke Cosimo I of Tuscany, then after becoming a widower, Barbara, the sister of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor (1527–1576) and finally a third wife, Margherita Gonzaga, daughter of the duke of Mantua.

Though he raised the glory of Ferrara to its highest point, and was the patron of Torquato Tasso and Giovanni Battista Guarini, favouring the arts and sciences, as the princes of his house had always done, the legitimate line ended in 1597 with him. Emperor Rudolph II recognized as heir his first cousin Cesare d'Este (1533–1628), member of a cadet branch born out of wedlock, who continued to rule in the imperial duchies and carried on the family name. Ferrara, on the other hand, was annexed by force of arms in 1598 by Pope Clement VIII, on grounds of the heir's illegitimacy, and incorporated into the Papal States.

The last duke, Ercole III, was deposed in 1796 by the French and his two duchies became the Cispadane Republic which one year later was merged into the Cisalpine Republic and then into the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. Ercole was compensated in 1801 with the small principality of Breisgau in southwestern Germany, whose previous rulers, the Habsburgs, ceded it to him in anticipation of its eventual return to the Habsburgs, since Ercole's daughter Maria Beatrice Ricciarda d'Este was married to a cadet Habsburg, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este. Ercole died in 1803 and Breisgau passed to his daughter and her husband, who then (1806) lost it during the Napoleonic reorganization of the western territories of the defunct Holy Roman Empire to the enlarged and elevated Grand Duchy of Baden.