Ippolito II d'Este | |
|---|---|
 Ippolito II d'Este | |
| Born | 25 August 1509 Ferrara,Italy |
| Died | 2 December 1572(1572-12-02) (aged 63) |
| Noble family | Este |
| Father | Alfonso I d'Este |
| Mother | Lucrezia Borgia |
| Occupation | Cardinal of Santa Maria in Aquiro |
Ippolito (II) d'Este (25 August 1509 – 2 December 1572) was an Italiancardinal and statesman. He was a member of theHouse of Este, and nephew of the otherIppolito d'Este, also a cardinal. He despoiled the then 1,400-year-oldHadrian's Villa, built by the Roman emperorHadrian, removing marbles and statues from it to decorate his own villa, theVilla d'Este.[citation needed]
Ippolito was born inFerrara,Italy, the second son of DukeAlfonso I d'Este andLucrezia Borgia.[1] His elder brother,Ercole II d'Este, succeeded his father asDuke of Ferrara in 1534. Through their mother, Ippolito and Ercole were grandsons ofPope Alexander VI. Ippolito himself is named after his uncle, CardinalIppolito d'Este.
In 1519, at the age of 10, he inherited thearchbishopric of Milan from his uncle. This was the first of a long list of ecclesiasticalbenefices which Ippolito was given over time, the revenue from which was his main source of income. In addition to Milan, at the end of his life Ippolito also held the benefices of the sees/abbeys of Bondeno,Chaalis (1540–1572),Jumieges in Normandy, Lyon, Narbonne, and Saint-Médard in Soissons.
Ippolito d'Este was created Cardinal of Santa Maria in Aquiro byPope Paul III in the consistory on 20 December 1538. He was ordained a priest in 1564.
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, CardinalErcole Gonzaga, which he rented as his cardinalatial residence in Rome. He had theVilla d'Este built in Tivoli by Mannerist architectPirro 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 ancientHadrian'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 composerPalestrina.[2]
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 ofHenry II. In 1550 he was governor of the French-controlled territoryTivoli.[1] Such was the strength of his relationship with the French court that he was the French candidate in the conclave which electedPope Julius III, Paul III's successor.
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 inModena, 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]
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$=considered an intruder by theCatholic Church | |
