Estensi's Delights

The Estensi's Delights are a set of 19 villas, summer retreats and hunting lodges located in the Ferrara territory and the Padusa Valley area. They were erected by the Este family in a period from the late 1300s to the mid 1500s. Some are still intact and in good condition, some are in ruins while others no longer exist. The best known are Schifanoia and Belriguardo. Most were connected to Ferrara by canals and waterways.

The Este dotted the Ferrarese territory with palaces, villas and gardens, which historiography would later refer to as ‘delights,’ emphasizing their Edenic and, in a sense, disengaged values, while conversely leaving the geopolitical reasons for those settlements more in the background. Indeed, this veritable system of suburban and, even more widely, extra-urban residences made it possible to coordinate on a large scale the administration of agricultural assets (the so-called ‘castalderie’) or the exploitation of forests and hunting reserves, innervating the territory with strongholds of Este power. At the end of the sixteenth century, in the years of Alfonso II, the extra-urban residences of the Este were the object of renewed attention as a consequence also of the new territorial policies imposed by the sovereign and primarily of the Grande Bonificazione Estense, which created the conditions for the agricultural exploitation of ‘new lands’ to be colonized on a large scale. The easternmost offshoots of the duchy were increasingly the favored destination of an itinerant court along the dense network of waterways, to the fishy Comacchio valleys and especially to the dense coastal forests of the delta, populated by deer, hares and wild boar, well protected for ducal hunts.

SCHIFANOIA PALACE

The Schifanoia Palace is a building in Ferrara, dating back to 1385, which today houses a museum.
It was erected on the commission of Alberto d'Este and then transformed and enlarged especially during the time of Borso d'Este. The name was meant to emphasize its divertissement character (literally meaning “dodging boredom”). In 1468 it was elevated, while in 1493 it was completed by Biagio Rossetti's crowning.

The facade features a large carved marble portal dating from 1470. Inside, the museum tour begins in the oldest, 14th-century wing, where various collections (paintings, bronzes, ivories, wooden inlays, graffito ceramics, and medals) are housed. The palace is especially famous for the frescoes in the Salone dei Mesi, among the most important wall-painting cycles of 15th-century Italy. Designed by Cosmè Tura and the astrologer Pellegrino Prisciani, it was collectively attended by the best painters of the Ferrarese school, including Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de' Roberti. The name derives from the personifications of the months of the year, to each of which corresponds a zodiac sign and allegories with related work activities. The lower band is also decorated by Episodes from the life of Borso d'Este and the upper band by the Triumphs of the gods. Only the months from March to September have reached us, which can be read counterclockwise.

BELRIGUARDO DELIGHT

The Belriguardo Delight arose in the territory of Voghiera and was the first to be built outside the city of Ferrara, from which Voghiera is about 15 km away. It was regarded as the Versailles of the Este family.
The Belriguardo Delight was commissioned by Marquis Niccolò III d'Este and was used as a summer residence for the entire Este court and as a representative villa. The laying of the foundation stone dates back to 1435, although the structure underwent continuous revisions and extensions over the years by successive dukes of the house of Este. Lucrezia Borgia stayed there.

In the second half of the 1500s the Italian Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso also stayed in the Belriguardo Delight, who lived several years between this Este delizia, where he loved to retreat, and Ferrara, where his court resided. The delight is accessed through a tower topped by angels holding, originally, the Este coat of arms. Opposite the tower, in the large courtyard, is the main building with large Gothic windows. The reception rooms were frescoed by Pisanello, Cosmè Tura, Ercole de' Roberti, and later, in 1537, by Camillo Filippi, Battista Dossi, Girolamo da Carpi, Garofalo, and Giacomo da Ferrara. Of the decorative cycles existing here at the time of Ercole I d'Este only the splendid coeval description by Sabadino Degli Arienti remains. The only frescoes that have survived to the present day are the 16th-century ones in the Sala delle Vigne, recently restored.

VERGINESE DELIGHT

The Verginese Delight is a two-story rectangular villa bordered at the apexes by four crenellated towers located near Portomaggiore. Built of white-plastered brick. It is connected by an 18th-century portico to a private chapel. At the rear is a brolo (a Renaissance garden) and a dovecote tower.

It was built in the form of a simple farmhouse near the Primaro and Sillaro rivers as early as the end of the 15th century and was thus accessible from Ferrara by water. Then under the Duke of Ferrara Alfonso I d'Este it was remodeled perhaps by Girolamo da Carpi and took on its full splendor. Alfonso gave it to the learned courtesan Laura Dianti, who consoled and accompanied the duke after the death of his wife Lucrezia Borgia and who resided there until her death. Laura Dianti has been identified in a painting by Titian, who was called upon by Alfonso to portray the lady whom perhaps Alfonso married shortly before his death. Upon Laura's death (1573), it passed by inheritance to the Este descendants up to Cesare d'Este.The delight, now owned by the Provincial Administration, has recently been restored and hosts exhibitions and cultural initiatives promoted by the Municipality of Portomaggiore, during which it is possible to access the architectural complex.

MESOLA CASTLE

The Este family owned the immense forest of Mesola, also sung about by Ludovico Ariosto. Here Duke Alfonso II “for the convenience of his hunts” and to crown the reclamation of the Polesine of Ferrara, had the castle built, which is the last of the Este delights, erected by Giovan Battista Aleotti to a design by Marc'Antonio Pasi, known as “Il Montagnana.” Mesola Castle was built between 1578 and 1583 at the behest of Alfonso d'Este, by Giovan Battista Aleotti based on a design by Marc'Antonio Pasi, known as Il Montagnana, and was used by the Este family as a dwelling during hunting parties in the adjacent Mesola Woods. The delizia has a square architectural layout with four crenellated pentagonal towers at the corners, surrounded by porticoed buildings. It remained the property of the Este family until 1771. Various changes of ownership followed until 1952 when it came under the control of the Ente Delta Padano and is now owned by the Province of Ferrara.

Since it was an allodial property, that is, full ownership, the Este family retained Mesola even after 1598, the year they moved to Modena. In 1771 Ercole III d'Este, Duke of Modena, gave the castle and estate as dowry to his daughter Beatrice, who went on to marry Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, son of Maria Theresa. Several ownership changes followed , from the Papal State to the French Republic, and only in 1911, with the intervention of the SBTF (Società per le Bonifiche dei Terreni Ferraresi), did a series of works begin to maintain and extend the estate. In 1952 it came under the control of the Ente Delta Padano and is now owned by the Provincial Administration of Ferrara. It is home to the Environmental Education Center.

POMPOSA ABBEY

The great abbey with the bell tower-lighthouse and the monastic village of Pomposa were situated at the crossroads of the road route of the “Roman” roads, which led to Rome through the eastern passes of the Alps and the Apennines. It was a cultural stronghold in the life not only of the surrounding territories but of all of central and northern Italy, earning the appellation “monasterium princeps,” as Guido, the monk “inventor musicae,” wrote.

The complex is divided into three essential nuclei: the church, preceded by an elegant atrium and with the bell tower next to it, the monastery and the Palace of Reason. The oldest nucleus is the basilica of Santa Maria (late 8th century), but two small churches would have existed at an earlier stage.
Standing independently beside the basilica is the bell tower, built in 1063 by “magister Deusdedit.”

All that remains of the large monastery is the chapter house, the overlying dormitory and the refectory facing the courtyard, where the corner pillars of the ancient cloister (12th cent.) remain and, in the center, a 15th-century Venetian wellhead.

OTHER DELIGHTS

• Benvignante Delight
• Bagni Ducali Delight
• Diamantina Delight
• Mensa Villa
• Scortichino Delight

The destroyed delights

• Ostellato Delight
• Consandolo Delight
• Montesanto Delight
• Portomaggiore's Porto Castle
• Le Casette Delight
• Migliaro Delight
• Quartesana Delight
• Francolino Delight