Ferrara-Florence, Council of 257military experience before being named his father’s suc-
cessor and the king of SICILYin 1468 and of Aragon in
- The union of the Spanish kingdoms of Aragon and
CASTILEoccurred in October 1469 with Ferdinand’s mar-
riage to his cousin, ISABELI, the queen of Castile. Ferdi-
nand likely had hoped to obtain the Castilian Crown for
himself, but his politically astute wife always maintained
sovereign authority in her own realm.
REIGN: THE INQUISITION AND
TERRITORIAL EXPANSIONThe political philosophies of the two rulers were consis-
tent and ambitious, however, and the beginning of their
reign was marked by the promulgation of strong measures
to strengthen the royal authority and to curb the power of
the nobles, who had usurped many privileges and func-
tions of the Crown. In 1476 Ferdinand founded the Holy
Brotherhood, which was similar to a national military
police. The two monarchs fanatically insisted on religious
conformity. In 1478 a bull issued by Pope Sixtus IV (r.
1471–84) allowed the king and queen to appoint three
inquisitors to deal with heretics and critics of the politics
and policies of the church and by implication those of the
monarchs. This was the beginning of the notorious Span-
ish INQUISITION, which though supposedly religious in
motivation, soon became a political instrument to protect
absolute monarchy and further curtail the power of the
nobles. It also paid careful attention to the recently con-
verted Moriscos, who were dubiously converted Muslims.
The year 1492 was the most remarkable in Ferdi-
nand’s reign. It opened in January with the conquest of
GRANADA, which marked the victorious end, at least in
Iberia, of the long project of RECONQUEST against the
Muslims who had once occupied most of the peninsula.
In March of that year, the decree of expulsion of the Jews
was proclaimed in the newly captured city of Granada,
with a continuing policy of expulsion promoted by Ferdi-
nand and especially by Isabel throughout their reigns. In
August Christopher COLUMBUS, sponsored by Ferdinand
and Isabel, left the seaport of Palos on his voyage to
America, the first step in the creation of a Spanish over-
seas colonial empire.
In 1493, by the terms of a treaty between Spain and
FRANCE, Ferdinand added to his kingdom by recovering
from King Charles VIII (r. 1483–98) of France the
province of Roussillon, formerly mortgaged to King
LOUISXI of France. On the basis of the alleged madness
of his daughter, Joan (d. 1555), who had become insane
after the death of Philip I the Handsome in 1506, Ferdi-
nand assumed the regency of Castile. He joined the
League of Cambrai against the republic of VENICEin 1508
and conquered Oran and TRIPOLIon the North African
coast in 1509. He annexed, probably illegally, the king-
dom of NAVARREin 1512, thereby extending the borders
of his united realm from the Pyrenees to the Rock of
Gibraltar. Ferdinand was in many ways a competent
ruler. His reign, however, was characterized by an insa-
tiable thirst for power, and he was both cruel and perfidi-
ous. He died on January 23, 1516, en route to Granada,
where he was buried beside Isabel.
See alsoHABSBURGS;TORQUEMADA,TOMÁS.
Further reading: John Edwards, The Spain of the
Catholic Monarchs, 1474–1520(Oxford: Blackwell, 2000);
J. N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250–1516,Vol. 2,
Castilian Hegemony(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).Ferrara, city of Medieval and Renaissance Ferrara was
a major city in the Po Valley in northern Italy. In local tra-
dition, Ferrara was a Byzantine dependency and had a
bishop from the seventh century. In 753 the LOMBARDS
took control of the town or village from the Byzantine gov-
ernment centered at RAVENNA. More firmly documented in
the 10th century, Ferrara, at the center of a rich agricul-
tural district, was in theory part of the PAPALSTATESand, as
was common then, under the rule of its bishop. In the late
10th century, Ferrara was conquered by the Canossa family
and remained so until the early 12th century, when there
arose a commune that eventually became a member of the
LOMBARDLEAGUE. Several families tried to control the city,
including the ESTEfamily. In 1240 and more permanently
in 1264, they were recognized formally as its lords, among
the earliest instances of lordship of a city in Italy. Except
during a brief period, the city remained in the family’s
hands throughout the Middle Ages and well beyond. In
1329, they obtained papal recognition. They continued to
build a regional state, taking over Modena in 1335, Parma
in 1344, and much of the Romagna in the 15th century.
Attempts by VENICEand MILANto subdue the city failed in
the 15th century. The prosperous and elegant ESTEcourt
was one of the most celebrated in Europe in the 14th and
15th centuries and made Ferrara well known for its artistic
patronage, architecture projects, and tradition of literary
support. A university was founded in 1391.
Further reading:Trevor Dean, Land and Power in
Late Medieval Ferrara: The Rule of the Este, 1350–1450
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Werner
L. Gundersheimer, Ferrara: The Style of a Renaissance
Despotism(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1973); Lewis Lockwood, Music in Renaissance Ferrara,
1400–1505: The Creation of a Musical Center in the Fif-
teenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1984); Charles M. Rosenberg, The Este Monuments
and Urban Development in Renaissance Ferrara (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Thomas
Touhy, Herculean Ferrara: Ercole d’Este, 1471–1505, and
the Invention of a Ducal Capital(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996).Ferrara-Florence, Council of This was an ecumeni-
cal council of the church transferred from BASEL and
held for a few months in late 1438 in FERRARAand then