Isabella d’Este was born in 1474 in the city of Ferrara, the first child of Duke Ercole d’Este and his wife, Eleonora d’Aragona. She grew up in the sophisticated and opulent world of Italy’s elite, studying with top-notch humanist teachers and rubbing elbows with figures of renown: painters, poets, and princes who were making the history of what would later be called the Italian Renaissance.