Este

Este, Italian princely family, best known as the ruling dynasty of Renaissance Ferrara. Its founder, Alberto Azzo II (996-1097), was invested with the town of Este near Padua by Holy Roman Emperor Henry III. Welf, or Guelph, IV, Alberto Azzo's son by his marriage to a German princess, became Duke of Bavaria in 1070. Welf was the ancestor of the ruling dynasties of Brunswick and Hanover and, through them, of the sovereigns of Great Britain since 1714.

Alberto Azzo's Italian descendants became lords of Ferrara and Modena in the 13th century. Leonello d'Este made Ferrara a centre of art and scholarship; his brother Borso was given the title Duke of Ferrara by the pope in 1471. Duke Ercole I strengthened his family's position by marrying his children into the principal ruling houses of Italy. His son Alfonso I, noted as an expert in artillery design, married Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, but later allied himself with France against the papacy. His sisters Beatrice d'Este and Isabella d'Este were patrons of the painters Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Titian; his son Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este began construction of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli and was a patron of the composer Giovanni da Palestrina. The House of Este lost control of Ferrara in 1598, but continued to rule Modena until 1859.