Rinaldo, son of the fourth Marquis d’Este, fought against the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and Octavian, the antipope, in favour of Alexander III. ↩
This Azzo was elected Podestà of Verona. ↩
Otho IV. Honorius II. ↩
I have preferred English names, or even French, as approaching nearer to our associations, wherever no ridicule attached to them. For this reason I have changed Obizzo (accented as a dactyl in Italian) into its French equivalent. ↩
The Lords of Este, siding with the Guelphs, received from the church the duchy of Spoleto. ↩
By whom Ezzelino, nicknamed the son of the devil, on account of his monstrous cruelties, was defeated, wounded, and taken. ↩
The Emperor Frederick the Second. ↩
Ferrara.—I need hardly add that the Po was the supposed scene of Phaethon’s catastrophe, the transformation of his sisters into poplars or larches weeping amber, and of Cygnus into a swan. ↩
Aldobrandino of Este, and first Marquis of Ferrara, obliged Otho IV to retire into Germany, who had made war on Pope Innocent IV and driven him into the capital for shelter. Aldobrandino being in want of money to carry on the war, borrowed it of the Florentines, leaving his brother in pledge. ↩
This space would, I believe, comprehend the old Exarchate of Ravenna. ↩
Rinaldo, the son of Azzo, who was poisoned at Naples, where he was confined by Frederic II. ↩
Obizzo, natural son of the last Rinaldo, was legitimated by Pope Innocent III with the consent of the emperor, and succeeded to the inheritance of Ferrara. He conquered Modena and Reggio. ↩
In a partial crusade, in the time of Charles II king of the two Sicilies, Azzo was made standard-bearer, and, for his services, obtained the daughter of that king in matrimony. ↩
Niccolò d’Este, and Alberto his brother, obtained Faenza, and were successful in their enterprises. ↩
Rovigo, called in Latin Rhodigium. ↩
Commacchio, a town in the Ferrarese, situated between two branches of the Po; whose inhabitants are said to rejoice in storms, because they drive the fish into their marshes, called in the Venetian dialect (of which the Ferrarese seems only a modification) vali, or valleys. ↩
Nicholas being left an infant by his father Alberto’s death, Azzo d’Este, who had been driven from his country, thought of returning, with the assistance of Tydeus, Count of Conio; but was opposed by the child’s guardians, who made Nicholas Lord of Ferrara. He afterwards killed Otho III who had usurped Parma and Reggio—and obtained the grant of those cities by the consent of the inhabitants. ↩
Meaning that of the house of Este. ↩
Lionel and Borso were the natural sons, and Hercules and Sigismond the legitimate sons of Nicholas; who left his legitimate children under the protection of Lionel, who, seizing the government, drove out the brothers, and reigned in their place. His brother Borso, after the death of Lionel, recalled the banished brothers, and educated them as his own children. ↩
Hercules succeeded Borso. He would seem to have been wounded in a battle at Budrìo, where he was an ally of the Venetians, against the Romans, and restored the fortune of the day. Budrìo is a town in the territory of Ravenna. Barco is a place under the walls of Ferrara. ↩
Hercules fought in the service of Alphonso, king of the Catalans, when he, I suppose, fought the single combat alluded to in the text. ↩
The ensign of Venice. ↩
His states escaped the oppression of Charles VIII of France, when he overran the greater part of Italy. ↩
Alphonso I the third Duke of Ferrara, and Cardinal Ippolito his brother, both patrons of Ariosto. ↩
Meaning Rome. ↩
Alphonso being at variance with the pope and the Venetians, the pope obtained from Ferdinand, King of Naples, some Spanish troops, who took Bastìa, which was retaken under the circumstances stated in the text. ↩
The Ippolito to whom he dedicates his poem. ↩
The Maro, celebrated in the same stanza, in whom Ariosto might seem to have prefigured himself, is averred by a commentator to have been Andrea Marone, a Ferrarese poet of that day, and the conjecture appears strengthened by the honourable mention made of him in the last canto of the Furioso. ↩
Barks and galleys taken by horse and foot sound oddly in an Englishman’s ears. The passage alludes to the following exploit. The Venetians going up the Po with a fleet against Alphonso, Cardinal Ippolito went out of the city with some horse and foot, and coming to Volona, a castle near the river, and finding the enemy’s galleys unprovided, most of the crews being on shore, he sank four of them, and took fifteen, with other smaller craft. ↩
Hercules the second, fourth duke of Ferrara. ↩
Ferrante of Este, natural brother to Alfonso and Ippolito, had conspired with Giulio, his natural brother, to assassinate the duke; but the plot being discovered, they were condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Sir John Harrington tells the following story respecting the origin of this plot. “It happened that Ippolito, and one of these brothers, fell in love
