Not much information is known about Ercole, but he served as a cardinal for the Catholic Church, in Vatican City.

When his mother became a widow in 1500, she took the family back to Modena.

When he finished his studies, he went to Rome and entered the service of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, future Pope Leo X.

In Ravenna, Ercole who was in Rome, was sent by his mother to assist the cardinal with gifts and help; he wanted to remain with the cardinal and share with him his prison but the latter did not allow it and asked Ercole to return to the Medicis; when the cardinal was being transported to France, helped by Andrea Guidone, a Modenese, he escaped and went to Piacenza and then to Modena, where Donna Bianca received him in Palazzo Rangone and gave him vestments, money, horses and a considerable sum of silver; the cardinal was later elected to the pontificate and then invited her to Rome and treated her as if he was her own son.

Soon afterward, Ercole was named “protonotary apostolic”.