Alfonso I d'Este (21 July 1476 – 31 October 1534) was Duke of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio from 1505 until his death in 1534. A prominent military leader during the Italian Wars, he served on various sides throughout the conflict.
Alfonso was considered one of the most capable Italian generals of his age, who also owned the finest weapons factory of the peninsula. Renowned for his innovations in the use of artillery, he earned the nickname Duca Artigliere ("Artilleryman Duke").
Alfonso was the son of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and Eleanor of Naples, and became duke on Ercole's death in January 1505.
In the first year of his rule he uncovered a plot by his brother Ferrante and half-brother Giulio d'Este, directed against him and his other brother Ippolito. In September 1506 a trial for lèse majesté and high treason was held and, as expected, the death sentence was passed, but just as Ferrante and Giulio were about to mount the gallows they were informed that the duke had commuted their sentence to life imprisonment. They were led away to two cells in the Torre dei Leoni. Ferrante died in his cell after 34 years of imprisonment, while Giulio held on until he was pardoned in 1559, after 53 years of imprisonment. After his release, Giulio was ridiculed in the streets of Ferrara for his outdated clothes. He died in 1561.
In the Italian Wars Alfonso preserved his precarious position among the contending powers by flexibility and vigilance and the unrivalled fortifications of Ferrara. During the first war, he fought with the Holy League against King Charles VIII of France, assisting his brother-in-law Ludovico Sforza from Milan, while his brother Ferrante fought for Charles instead. A bout of syphilis, however, prevented him from commanding the Ferrarese contingent in the Battle of Fornovo in 1495, where Francesco II Gonzaga was defeated by the French. Even then, the League was successful in expelling the French from the Italian peninsula after the Siege of Atella.
In 1508, he entered the League of Cambrai against Venice, acting as Gonfaloniere for the army of Pope Julius II. Two years later, however, he did not accept Julius' peace with Venice and turn against France, which was politically inconvenient for Ferrara. He remained an ally of Louis XII of France and warred against the League instead. When the Bolognesi rebelled against Julius and toppled Michelangelo's bronze statue of the Pope from above the gate, Alfonso received the shards and recast them as a cannon named La Giulia, which he set on the ramparts of the castello. Julius excommunicated him and declared his fiefs forfeit, thereby adding Ferrara to the Papal States.
Alfonso fought successfully against the Venetian and Papal armies, winning the Battle of Polesella, capturing Bologna, and playing a major part in the French victory at the Battle of Ravenna (1512). These successes were based on Ferrara's artillery, produced in his own foundry, which was the best of its time. In both of his portraits by Titian, (Compare illustration above) he poses with his arm across the mouth of one of his cannon. In 1518 he sought the support of King Francis I of France to recover his feud of Modena from the Pope Leo X's hands, but it was unsuccessful. He briefly waged war against the Papacy by himself.
In 1526, Alfonso was called to join the League of Cognac against King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, but he clashed with the new pope, Clement VII, promoter of the League, who similarly refused to grant him the feud. Increasingly courted by Charles' diplomats, Alfonso eventually joined the emperor. He supplied him with artillery in barges through the Po river, arming the landsknechts of imperial general Georg von Frundsberg with especially made falconets. One of his cannons decisively killed the League's land general Giovanni delle Bande Nere in Governolo. The admiral of the League, Andrea Doria, also changed sides and joined the emperor, eventually granting them the victory of the war. With Charles' help, in 1530 the Pope again recognized Alfonso as possessor of the forfeited duchies of Modena and Reggio.
In January 1491, Alfonso married Anna Maria Sforza, the niece of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The wedding was part of a double marriage arranged by Leonardo da Vinci, during which Ludovico himself married Alfonso's younger sister, Beatrice d'Este. Alfonso and Anna had one daughter who died in childbirth.
The marriage was primarily political, aimed at cementing ties between the Este and Sforza families. However, the alliance effectively ended with the deaths of both Anna (30 November 1497) and Beatrice (January 1497).
In 1501, Alfonso married Lucrezia Borgia. They had:
Alessandro d'Este (1505–1505);
Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (5 April 1508 – 3 October 1559)
Ippolito II d'Este (25 August 1509 – 1 December 1572), Archbishop of Milan and later Cardinal
Leonora d'Este (3 July 1515 – 15 July 1575), a nun and composer
Francesco d'Este, Marquess of Massalombarda (1 November 1516 – 2 February 1578)
Isabella Maria d'Este (born and died on 14 June 1519)
After Lucrezia's death on 24 June 1519, Alfonso formed a union with Laura Dianti, by whom he had two illegitimate sons (later legitimized): Alfonso and Alfonsino d'Este.