Cesare, duke of Modena and Reggio, died in 1628. His sou Alfonso III., who had remained as hostage at Ferrara, had shown in his youth marks of a violent disposition. In 1619 he caused Ercole Pepoli to be assassinated at Ferrara. Stung by remorse, he abdicated the ducal throne soon after his father's death, and became a Franciscan monk. He distinguished himself as a zealous preacher, and founded several convents. He died in 1644, iu a convent which he had founded in the mountains of Garfagnana. His sou Francis I. affected a great zeal for religion, had his food scrupulously weighed on fast days, and he sentenced a relative of Marshal Classion to be shot for want of proper respect while at church. He first separated the Jews from the rest of the population at Modena in 1630, and confined them to the Ghetto. Ile began the magnificent ducal palace at Modena as well as the country residence and gardens at Samuel°. His successor, Alfonso IV., received in 1660 of the emperor Leopold the investiture of the prin cipality of Correggio, which he had previously purchased. Alfonso loved the fine arts, and he was the founder of the Este gallery of paintings. Ile left at his death a soli two years old, who was after wards duke by the name of Francis II. During his minority his mother, Laura Martinozzi, Cardinal Mazarin's niece, held the govern ment. She collected together all the bad characters in her dominions, and delivered them over to the Venetians, who employed them in the war of Candia against the Turks. Francis 1L founded tho university of Modena, as well as the splendid library called Eatense, of which Zaccaria, Muratori, and Tiraboachi were successively librarians. Francis IL dying in 1694 without issue, was succeeded by his uncle, Cardinal Rinaldo, who, after resigning hla hat, married a daughter of the Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg, and sister-in-law to the emperor Joseph I. By this marriage the two branches of Este and Brunswick which had been eeparated since 1070, became again connected, During the war of the Spanish succession, the Duke Rinaldo, notwith standing his professed neutrality, was obliged by the French to quit Modena and to take shelter at Rome. The victorious Austrians, com manded by Prince Eugene of Savoy, restored him to his domiuions, where he resided quietly till 1733, when the war for the succession to the crown of Poland, in which Italy had no conceru what-ver, but for which Italy was as usual devastated by the belligerents, obliged Rinaldo again to leave his territories, which became the battle-field between the French and Piedmontese on one side, and the Austrians on the other. In 1736 Rinaldo returned to Modena. His repeated
misfortunes affected and perhaps improved his disposition : he became serious and economical after having been inclined to pomp aud mag nificence. He enlarged his domiuions by the purchase of the duchy of Mirandola and the county of Bagnolo. Rinaldo was succeeded in 1537 by his son Francis III., who was serving iu Hungary against the Turks at the time. During the war of the Austrian succession he took part for tho house of Bourhon, and commanded the Spanish armies in Italy. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle restored him to the quiet possession of his dominions. In 1754 Duke Francis by Maria Theresa governor of Lombardy during the minority of her son the Archduke Ferdinand, who was betrothed to the Duke's grand daughter Beatrice d'Este, a child then four years old. In 1771 Francis gave up his trust to the Archduke Ferdinand, but continued to reside in Lombardy, and died at Varese in 1780. His son Ercole Rinaldo, the father of Beatrice, succeeded him as duke of Modena. His administration was peaceful and economical. He was ever watchful against the temporal interference of the court of Rome iu his dominions; and he was equally averse to the remains of feudality which still lingered in his states. When the French entered Italy in 1796, the duke made a convention with Bonaparte, paid a heavy con tribution, gave up some valuable paintings, but not trusting to the faith of the conqueror, be withdrew to Venice with his treasures, leaving a council of regency at Modena. An insurrection excited at Reggio by some Corsican soldiers in the French service afforded a pretext to Bonaparte to violate the convention, and to occupy the states of Modena, which were afterwards annexed to the Ciaalpine republic. (Botta, Storia d'Italia; Paridisi, 'Lettere a Carlo Botta.') When in the following year the French occupied Venice, the duke had escaped to Trieste, but a deposit of 200,000 sequins which he had left behind was seized. Ercole Rinaldo died in the Austrian States iu 1803. His daughter Maria Beatrice, the last offspring of the house of Este, lost her husband, the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, in the year 1800, and their eldest son, Francis IV., was restored by the peace of Paris in 1814 to the dominions of his maternal ancestors, namely, the duchy of Modena, Reggio, and their dependencies, including the district of Garfagnana. on the borders of Linea. By the death of his mother he also inherited the duchy of Massa and Carrara, of which his grandmother, of the house of Cibo Malaspina, was the heiress. lie died January 21, 1846, and was succeeded in all his titles and possessions by his son Francis V.