BALDASSARE D' ESTE - b. 1432 Reggio Emilia, d. 1506 Ferrara - WGA

BALDASSARE D' ESTE

(b. 1432 Reggio Emilia, d. 1506 Ferrara)

Baldassare d’Este (Baldassare da Reggio), Italian painter and medallist. He was brought up as the adopted son of a certain Giovanni Bonayti, but a document of 1489 records him as the (illegitimate) son of Niccolò III d’Este, Marquis of Ferrara. In most documents, however, he is called ‘Baldassare da Reggio’.

Baldassare d’Este is almost unknown today, yet in his generation he was the court painter at Ferrara, and for forty years portrayed the features of successive dukes and statesmen and all the array of distinguished people that thronged the brilliant court of the Estes. Himself a child of Duke Niccolò III, he enjoyed a natural advantage to which the illegitimacy of his birth was no bar.

Born at Reggio, in the Emilia, Baldassare is first heard of in 1460, when in the service of the Sforzas at Milan. In 1469 he was employed by Galeazzo Maria Sforza to paint his portrait and that of his wife, in the Castle of Pavia, and soon after was received into the service of his own half-brother, Borso, Duke of Ferrara, who appointed him, together with Cosmè Tura, Court painter to the Este family. From 1469-74 he produced many portraits, including four different likenesses of Duke Borso himself. He was also employed to retouch many of the heads in the famous frescoes in the Schifanoia Palace, where Francesco Cossa and other Ferrarese masters had been at work. After Borso’s death he twice painted the new Duke, Ercole I, and also the Neapolitan envoy, Fabrizio Caraffa. Not one of these portraits has been identified, but medals by him, dated 1472 and representing Ercole I, are known.

Some time before 1489, he received the post of captain of the Porta Castello of Reggio, which he held for some years. He returned to Ferrara, where from 1497 onwards he held the office of captain of Castello Tedaldo.

Borso d'Este

Borso d’Este (1413-1471) was the ruler of Ferrara for more than two decades. He succeeded his more cultured and intellectual brother Leonello, in 1450. He was made duke of Modena and Reggio by Frederick III in 1452, and in 1471, four months before his death, he was installed as duke of Ferrara.

Borso was vain but his interest in portraiture was not merely an expression of vanity: he fully appreciated the usefulness of princely images in promoting his legitimacy and status. His portrait was included in the fresco cycles of his various residences, most memorably in the Palazzo Schifanoia, as well as on medals, coins, and in individual portraits.

After 1469, his half-brother, Baldassare d’Este, became Borso’s preferred portraitist. The present portrait by Baldassare shows Borso toward the end of his life, gray-haired and lowly but every bit the proud ruler.

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Horseman (detail)

The Salone dei Mesi (Room of Months) in the Palazzo Schifanoia, one of the masterpieces of Italian palace architecture, was decorated with a series of allegorical frescoes symbolizing the months. The length of the room is 24 m, the width 11 m and the height 7,5 m. The frescoes are attributed to Cosme Tura, Francesco del Cossa, Baldassare d’Este and Ercole de’ Roberti.

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Portrait of a Young Man

The painter of this picture was previously known as A. F. Master of Ferrara.

Baldassare Estense was the natural son of Nicolo III d’Este. In the last centuries this painting was attributed to different painters based on the initials to be found in the lower part of the picture. Since these initials were resolved as A. F(errariensis) P(ixit), the painting was mentioned for a long time as the work of A.F. Master from Ferrara. In the last decades the attribution to Baldassare Estense seems to be final. The identity of the young man on the picture is not established. Constanzo Sforza, Antonio Ordelaffi or somebody from the Fugger family are usually mentioned as possible identification.

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