Eleonora d'Este-Gesualdo

Don Carlo could not have found a better match than Donna Eleonora d'Este.

Donna Eleonora's father was Alfonso d'Este, Marchese di Montecchio (son of Alfonso I, duke of Ferrara and Laura dei Dianti), and her mother was Giulia Della Rovere (daughter of Francesco Maria I, Duke of Urbino).

This made her the first cousin of Alfonso II, the great musical patron and powerful duke of Ferrara.

Alfonso II was eager to make this dynastic alliance in order to get in the good graces of the Pope, through Don Carlo's uncle, Cardinal Alfonso Gesualdo.

Don Carlo was eager to enter the court life of Ferrara to make musical connections, meet music master Luzzasco Luzzaschi, and promote his own musical works.

It turned out the union was more to Gesualdo's advantage, as Gesualdo published his first four books of madrigals in Ferrara... But Duke Alfonso II died without heirs and a pitiless Pope seized Ferrara for the Papal States, regardless of the pleas of Cardinal Gesualdo and the d'Este family.

The Castela d'Este in Ferrara