The story of this place
The Este family ruled Ferrara for three centuries and built this imposing moated fortress from 1385, after a violent tax revolt convinced the duke he needed a stronghold within his own city. Behind its red-brick towers and drawbridges the court became a Renaissance cultural powerhouse, patronising Ariosto, Tasso, and Titian. But the castle also hid dark drama: in 1425 Duke Niccolò III discovered his young wife Parisina Malatesta and his illegitimate son Ugo were lovers and had both beheaded in the dungeons below—a scandal that inspired Byron's poem 'Parisina.' When the last direct Este heir died in 1597, Ferrara passed to the Papal States. The castle, with its dungeons, chapels, and roof terraces, now anchors a UNESCO Renaissance city.