Ippolito II d'Este
Ippolito II d'Este | |
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Cardinal of Santa Maria in Aquiro |
Ippolito (II) d'Este (25 August 1509 – 2 December 1572) was an Italian
Biography
Ippolito was born in
In 1519, at the age of 10, he inherited the
Ippolito d'Este was created Cardinal of Santa Maria in Aquiro by Pope Paul III in the consistory on 20 December 1538. He was only ordained a priest in 1564.
Patronage of the arts
A lover of luxuries and magnificence, he overhauled the Palazzo San Francesco in Ferrara before his first appointment to the French court. After his elevation to the College of Cardinals in 1538, he refurbished the palace of his cousin, Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, which he rented as his cardinalatial residence in Rome. He had the Villa d'Este built in Tivoli by Mannerist architect Pirro Ligorio, to match the other palaces he was building in Rome. To decorate his villa, he had much of the marbles and statues taken from the nearby ancient Hadrian's Villa, as a result of which the latter is devoid of most of its original features.
Ippolito d'Este also helped to sponsor the career of the composer Palestrina.[2]
Statesman
At the time of his elevation to Cardinal he was the Ferrarese ambassador to the French court, whose interests he was to see to personally as Cardinal-Protector of France from 1549, in the reign of
After this defeat he mostly abandoned active ecclesiastical politics, although he continued to visit Rome and, in fact, eventually died in Rome after a short illness.[1] He was buried in Tivoli's church of Santa Maria Maggiore, next to his villa.
A significant number of Ippolito's letters and account books from his household has survived. This collection, including more than 2,000 letters and over 200 account books, is housed in the archives in Modena, a hereditary seat of the Este family. These materials form the basis for Mary Hollingsworth's book, The Cardinal's Hat: Money, Ambition, and Everyday Life in the Court of a Borgia Prince, a social history of Ippolito d'Este and his times.[3]
References
Notes
General references
- Vincenzo Pacifici (1920), Ippolito II d'Este cardinale di Ferrara, Tivoli, 1920; reprint Tivoli, 1984, [1] Archived 2017-09-23 at the Wayback Machine
- Hollingsworth, Mary (2005). The Cardinal's Hat. Woodstock & NY: Overlook Press. ISBN 1-58567-680-2.
- Borgia, Roberto (2009). In memoria del cardinale di Ferrara Ippolito II d'Este nel cinquecentesimo anniversario della nascita (1509-2009). Tivoli RM: Liceo classico statale "Amedeo di Savoia" (liceoclassicotivoli.it). ISBN 978-88-902795-5-3. ([2])
- Inventario dei beni del cardinale Ippolito II d'Este trovati nel palazzo e giardino di Tivoli (3-4 dicembre 1572)