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Obizzo III d'Este

Marquess of Ferrara

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ1843646 ↗
Source-derived summary

Obizzo III d'Este (14 July 1294 – 20 March 1352) was the Marquess of Ferrara from 1317 until his death. He initially shared the lordship of Ferrar with his brothers, but ended up as the sole ruler. Obizzo expanded his family possessions by acquiring the cities of Modena and Parma.

Life

Obizzo was the son of Aldobrandino II d'Este and Alda Rangoni. He was lord of Ferrara with his brothers Rinaldo and Niccolò, and his cousin Folco II, but in the end reigned as sole ruler. He managed to enlarge the family possessions with their restoration by consilia generale communis et populi of Modena in 1336, while Parma was sold to Obizzo in 1344.

In May 1317, Obizzo married firstly Giacoma Pepoli, daughter of Romeo de' Peppoli from Bologna, with whom he had no children. There are also reports that he married Princess Elisabeth of Saxony, Angria, and Westphalia, daughter of Albert II, Duke of Saxony.

In 1347, Obizzo married secondly Lippa Ariosti, known as la Bella, and his long-time mistress. The marriage took place shortly before Lippa's death on 27 November 1347 to legitimize their many children:

Beatrice (18 September 1332 – 1387), married in 1365 to Waldemar I, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Obizzo III d'Este” is marquess of Ferrara. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Obizzo, d'Este and Marquess, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1294, 1352, 1317, 1336—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1294-07-14. For this dossier, Obizzo, d'Este and Marquess is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “marquess of Ferrara” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1843646. VIAF identifies the subject as 89049895. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1294, 1352, 1317 and 1336.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Obizzo III d'Este” 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.