ho subsequently became a cardinal; Donna Anna, who
married the Duke of Guise; Donna Lucretia, who became Duchess of Urbino;
and Donna Leonora, who remained single.

Her son Alfonso II succeeded to the throne of Ferrara in 1559. This was
the duke whom Tasso made immortal. Just as Ariosto, during the reign of
the first Alfonso and Lucretia, had celebrated the house of Este in a
monumental poem, so Torquato Tasso now continued to do at the home of
his descendant, Alfonso II. By a curious coincidence the two greatest
epic poets of Italy were in the service of the same family. Tasso's fate
is one of the darkest memories of the house of Este, and is also the
last of any special importance in the history of the court of Ferrara.
His poem may be regarded as the death song of this famous family, for
the legitimate line of the house of Este died out October 27, 1597, in
Alfonso II, Lucretia Borgia's grandson. Don Caesar, a grandson of Alfonso
I, and son of that Alfonso whom Laura Dianti had borne him and of Donna
Giulia Rovere of Urbino, ascended the ducal throne of Ferrara on the
death of Alfonso II as his heir. The Pope, however, would not recognize
him. In vain he endeavored to prove that his grandfather, shortly before
his death, had legally married Laura Dianti, and that consequently he
was the legitimate heir to the throne. It availed nothing for the
contestants to appear before the tribunal of emperor and pope and
endeavor to make Don Caesar's pretensions good, nor does it now avail for
the Ferrarese, who, following Muratori, still seek to substantiate these
claims. Don Caesar was forced to yield to Clement VIII, January 13, 1598,
the grandson of Alfonso I renouncing the Duchy of Ferrara. Together with
his wife, Virginia Medici and his children, he left the old palace of
his ancestors and betook himself to Modena, the title of duke of that
city and the estates of Reggio and Carpi having been conferred upon him.

Don Caesar continued the branch line of the Este. At the end of the
eighteenth century it passed into the Austrian Este house in the person
of Archduke Ferdinand, and in the nineteenth century this line also
became extinct.

No longer do the popes control Ferrara. Where the castle of Tedaldo
stood when Lucretia made her entry into the city in 1502, where Clement
VIII later erected the great castle which was razed in 1859, there is
now a wide field in the middle of which, lost and forgotten, is a
melancholy statue