Elisabetta Gonzaga

Elisabetta Gonzaga (1471–1526) was a noblewoman of the Italian Renaissance, the Duchess of Urbino by marriage to Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro.

Despite having poor health, Elisabetta was known to be a great horsewoman and would frequently attend hunts in the countryside around Urbino.

On 21 June 1502 Cesare Borgia occupied Urbino, putting to flight Guidobaldo and forcing Elisabetta to remain in Mantua, where she had been staying as a guest.

Having no children they adopted in the same year Francesco Maria I della Rovere, the child of Guidobaldo's sister, who was then fourteen, to secure the succession.

[6] Elisabetta Gonzaga was immortalized by the writer Baldassare Castiglione, whose work of 1528, The Courtier, was based on his interactions and conversations with her.

Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga ( c. 1504 ), attributed to Raphael
Bronze medal, 6 centimeters across, of profile portrait, proper left, of Elisabetta Gonzaga, from the Widener Collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
Adriano Fiorentino. Bronze medal of Elisabetta Gonzaga. probably after 1502. National Gallery of Art , Washington. Widener Collection.