It was built for Niccolò III, under the supervision of Giovanni da Siena, between 1424 and 1434, in the same period in which the Delizia of Belriguardo was constructed.
According to tradition, the palace was the meeting place of Ugo, son of Marquis Niccolò III, and Parisina, the marquis’s young wife, whose love story ended tragically.
The palace was converted into a Delizia by Borso d’Este shortly before his death (1471).
It was an enormous building, with at least sixty rooms.
On 9 February 1483, during the Salt War (see box), troops of the Serenissima burst into the territory of Ferrara, destroying everything they found along their way, and went so far as to lay siege to the capital.
The Delizia of Fossadalbero was burnt and razed to the ground. The damage was so extensive and irreparable that ten years later Duke Ercole decided to sell off the surviving bricks…
Today what remains is a complex characterised by a battlemented tower in the Guelph style, with ravelins and projecting wings; it has 44 large rooms, some with fine coffered ceilings, a chapel and an inner garden courtyard.
It later came into the possession of the Mosti family, when Alfonso I d’Este granted them the ducal coat of arms and the surname “Estense”. In the eighteenth century it passed by inheritance to Ercole Trotti Mosti Estense, whose descendant Tancredi – a patriot and commander of the Bersaglieri del Po – promoted its restoration in 1872.The first tennis court in the province appeared here in 1900, when Tancredi Trotti Mosti had one built on the estate. The palace later passed to Marquis Giovanni Costabili and then to other families who oversaw further restoration work; today it houses the Ristorante Castello di Fossadalbero.
Private property – no public access
Salt War (1482–1484)
The Salt War was a conflict that involved numerous Italian states and was fought from the north-east to the south-east of the peninsula between 1482 and 1484. It broke out when the Republic of Venice declared war on Ferrara, ruled by Ercole I d’Este: the Venetians aimed to expand their mainland dominions southwards and to control access to the Po plain from the river’s mouths, and they also sought to seize the Comacchio saltworks, one of the Este court’s main sources of revenue.
Alliances formed that ranged from the Papal States to the Republic of Venice, from the Sforza to the Gonzaga and the most important signorie of the time. The Este could count on their close ties with the Duchy of Milan, strengthened by the betrothal of Ludovico il Moro to Beatrice d’Este.
Fighting took place from Città di Castello to Rome; on the Parmense front, troops from Mantua and Genoa clashed, followed by the siege of Ficarolo and the battle of Argenta, and then engagements at Rovigo, Massafiscaglia, Bondeno, Trezzo and Asola, through Cremona as far as Gallipoli in the Kingdom of Naples.
The line-ups shifted over the years of war, marked by mutual betrayals, espionage and sudden reversals.
With the Peace of Bagnolo of 7 August 1484, a new geopolitical map emerged: Venice retained almost all the territories it had conquered, while Ferrara regained Ariano, Corbola, Adria, Melara, Castelnuovo and Ficarolo, but lost all its other lands north of the Po.