ESTE, HOUSE OF, one of the oldest hietorical families of modern Europe, and the oldest among those which have retained sovereign power to the present time, the house of Savoy perhaps excepted. Some chrogiolugine, such as Piens, LaTO endeavuured to trace back the genealogy of the house of E.t.a to the 5th century of our ora, whet, we tend the namea of Atm, Aurelius, and Tiberius mentioned as priacea of Late, Vicenza, and Feltre. But to pretend to ascertain the 'Mein succession of there princes down to the 9th century is a matter at least very dubious. Tee wore sober end judicious Muratori, le his • Antictia E.t.a:fed,' has trued the ancestry of the Fate to dukes and marquises who goverued Tuscany as a great imperial fief under the Cadoviuglan emperor?, and who were )u•ufatoly, like most other greet Italian feudatories at that time, of Lougubard origin.
Some eta chroniclers, such as Mario Equicola, in his 'History of Mautue, state positively that they were Lougobarde, and related to the Umpteen! dukes of Spoleto. The succeasion however of these maryuies? ur dukes, mom; whom are regi.tered two of the uatue of Adalbeit, in the 9th century, Is not clearly as-el uutil we come to Adelhert, who is styled marquis, but of whom little is known, and who died shout 917. He left however two suer, Uuidu and leunberto, who were stripped of their fiefs by liege and Lothanius, kings of Italy. A eon or uephew of either ()tilde or Lamaerto, bathed Obertu, took the pait of Bei engarins 11., who was elected king of Italy a out 950; and this (Meets, was poese.s.ed, either by iuhertutece or through the favour of Itereegarius, or s=acral tiers In 'Latium, and Liguighttge. being afterear.os dissatisfied with the coullect of oeleupgrues, he w.s our of the Italian 11100US who repaired to Otto of Saxony to offer him the crown of Italy. Uthe, on his exaltation, appointed Obcrto 'comes mod pantie which was one of the first dignitaries of the kingdom, and gave him in marriage his daughter Aida. Oberto died about the year 972, leaving two sone, Adalbert and Oberto II., the latter of whom was lord of Lunigiana snd of the county of Obertengo in Tuscany. Oberto took the part of Hardouin, marquis of Ivrea, against henry of Bavaria, for the crown of Italy. Obcrto died about 1014, and was succeeded by his son,
Alberto Azzo I., who in his turn was succeeded by his son Alberto Azzo, or Albcrtazzo II. This Albertazzo, besides his paternal fiefs of Lunigiana and Tuscany, inherited also from his uncle Ugo the fiefs of Este, ltovigo, and Casalmeegiore, in Lombardy. In the year 1045 he was appointed by the emperor Henry III. count and governor of Milan; and soon after he married Kunitze, or Cunegonda, of the great German house of Welf, and sister to Wolf Ill., on whom the Emperor Henry had bestowed the duchy of Carinthia and the march of Verona. Wulf dying without issue, his inheritance fell to his sister's eldest son by Albertazzo, who took the name of \Velf IV. This Wolf IV. was made duke of Bavaria about 1070, and from him the line of Brunswick and Hanover, known also by the name of Este Guelphs, is descended.
Albertazzo having lost his German wife, married Garisooda, countess of Maine in France, by whom he had two eons, Fulco and Hugo. To Feleo he left his Italian estates, and Hugo inherited the French property of his mother, namely, the county of Maine, which he after wards sold. Hugo married a daughter of Robert Guiscard, the con queror of Naples, and died without issue. Muratori transcribes a diploma of the emperor Henry IV., dated 1077, confirming the poesessions of the Italian fiefs to Hugo and Folco, eons of the Marquis Azzo of Eate. Foleo, after his father's death, was sued by his half brother Welf for a share of his paternal inheritance but after a long contention, an arrangement was made by which Foloo retained the greater part of the Italian estates, including the fief of Este. Folco died in 1135, and his son Obizzo succeeded him. Like his father, ho assumed the title of marquis of Este, from the town of that name, by which his house was duienated aver after. The town of Este, built uear the ruins of the aucient Ateate, lies in the Veoetian state, north of the Adige, in the province of Padua. The Emperor Frederic Barb/tress:a at a court held at Verona In 1181, bestowed upun Obizzo the investiture of the ngarquisates of Milan and Geuea, which were then however merely nominal, as the two cities had become free.