Duke of Ferrara and of Modena
Ducal office
This is a list of rulers of the estates owned by the Este family, which main line of Marquesses (Marchesi d'Este) rose in 1039 with Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan. The name "Este" is related to the city where the family came from, Este.
From the Lordship of Este to the Duchy of Ferrara-Modena-Reggio
The family was founded by Adalbert the Margrave, who might have been the true first margrave of Milan of this family. In 1209, Azzo VI was named the first marquess of Ferrara. The title passed to his descendants, and the marquisate was delegated to a cadet branch of the Este family. Later, they were also created marquesses of Modena and Reggio.
In 1452 Borso d'Este, then marquis of Modena and Reggio, was raised by Emperor Frederick III with the title of duke of Modena and Reggio. In 1471, Pope Paul II formally elevated him in as Duke of Ferrara, over which the family had in fact long presided.
This latter territory was lost to the Papal States in 1597, while the House of Este continued to rule the Duchy of Modena and Reggio in the Emilia region until 1796, when it became part of Napoleon Bonaparte's Cispadane Republic. In 1814, the duchy was restored under the Habsburg grandson of the last Este duke, continuing until it was annexed by Piedmont-Sardinia in 1859.
“Duke of Ferrara and of Modena” enters the record as ducal office. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Duke, Ferrara and Modena can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1532877. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1039, 1209, 1452 and 1471.
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This entry incorporates text from “Duke of Ferrara and of Modena” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.