Azzo VIII d'Este (died 31 January 1308) was lord of Ferrara,

Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label= Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and '' comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. A town, and seat o ...

and Reggio from 1293 until his death. He inherited the family lands from his father, Obizzo II, whom

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ' ...

suggested in the '' Inferno'' he had assassinated. The Florentine poet cites him as half-son, but it is not clear if to stress Azzo's bad acts or if he was truly illegitimate. The early part of his rule was spent in almost continuous warfare: war with Padua at his accession and with Parma and Bologna in 1295–1299. He was accused of the assassination of the ''podestà ''of

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different na ...

Jacopo del Cassero Jacopo del Cassero (Fano, 1260 - Oriago, 1298) was a magistrate and condottiero from late medieval Italy. He appears as a character in Dante Alighieri's '' Purgatorio''. Life Jacopo del Cassero was born in Fano around 1260. He was the son of ...

, who had opposed the Este expansion plans. The marriage bargain he struck with

Charles II of Naples Charles II, also known as Charles the Lame (french: Charles le Boiteux; it, Carlo lo Zoppo; 1254 – 5 May 1309), was King of Naples, Count of Provence and Forcalquier (1285–1309), Prince of Achaea (1285–1289), and Count of Anjou and Mai ...

for his youngest daughter, Beatrice, was notorious in his day and among chroniclers afterwards: Dante asserted that Charles "was seen to sell his own daughter and to bargain over her as corsairs do over slaves."''Purgatorio'' XX.79-81. The nuptial agreement survives in the Este archives: Azzo granted his father-in-law 51,000 florins, to be invested in lands in the Regno and in appropriate places in the marquisate of Este, and promised to establish primogeniture in the Este holdings, contrary in fact to Estense traditions, and explicitly disinheriting Azzo's brother Francesco. The wedding was solemnized. Modena and Reggio rebelled in 1306 over an attempt to assign them to Beatrice as part of the

bride price Bride price, bride-dowry ( Mahr in Islam), bride-wealth, or bride token, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be married to or is just about to marry. Bride dow ...

, a custom that had been superseded in Italy by the

dowry A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment ...

. Francesco d'Este left Ferrara as Beatrice arrived and joined the coalition of cities that moved against Azzo in 1306, determined that he should not make himself lord of Lombardy.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Azzo 08 Of Este 13th-century births 1308 deaths House of Este Italian assassins 13th-century Italian nobility 14th-century Italian nobility Medieval assassins 13th-century murderers