Este, Alfonso d’

Alfonso d'Este (21 July 1476 – 31 October 1534) Duke of Ferrara 1505-1534.

Alfonso d’Este appears to have played the vihuela de arco. In 1502 at the wedding of Sanuto and Lucrecia Borgia, they heard “una musica de sei viole fra quale vi era il signor don Alfonso” In Mantua too, the “viola a la spagnola” was highly appreciated.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_I_d'Este,_Duke_of_Ferrara, accessed 27/09/2014]:
He was the son of Ercole I d'Este and Eleanor of Naples and became duke on Ercole's death in June 1505. In 1526–1527 Alfonso participated in the expedition of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, against Pope Clement VII, and in 1530 the pope again recognized him as possessor of the forfeited duchies of Modena and Reggio. Alfonso's first wife was Anna Sforza, the sister of Gian Galeazzo Sforza. His second wife was Lucrezia Borgia.

He was one of the great patrons of art of his time: for him the elderly Giovanni Bellini painted The Feast of the Gods in 1514, Bellini's last completed painting. He turned to Bellini's pupil, Titian, for a sequence of paintings. In 1529 Alfonso created the most magnificent gallery of his time, his studiolo or camerino d'alabastro ('small alabaster room'), now usually known as his "Camerino". Following in the lead of his father Ercole, who had made Ferrara into one of the musical centers of Europe, Alfonso brought some of the most famous musicians of the time to his court to work as composers, instrumentalists and singers. Musicians from northern Europe who worked at Ferrara during his reign included Antoine Brumel and Adrian Willaert.

Ercole d’ Este

was his

son