Renée de France (1510-1575)

Duchess of Ferrara 1534-75. The daughter of King Louis XII of France and Anne of Brittany, in 1528 she married Ercole d'Este, who became the duke of Ferrara in 1534. Under her patronage the court of Ferrara became a centre for writers and humanists, and also for religious reformers (including John Calvin). She converted from Catholicism to Protestantism and as a result was briefly imprisoned by her husband in 1554. When he died in 1560 she returned to France.

Her chateau at Montargis in France became a centre of Protestantism and in 1563, during the French Wars of Religion, it was besieged by her son-in-law, the Marquis of Guise.