Benedetta Maria Ernestina d'Este (18 August 1697 – 17 September 1777) was an Italian noblewoman and princess of the Duchy of Modena and Reggio.

She served as Regent of the Duchy of Modena and Reggio during the absence of her brother Francesco III in October - December 1737.

Her parents' marriage had required papal dispensation because of the close interrelationships of the ducal families of Brunswick and Modena.

Her cousin James Francis Edward Stuart, then the Jacobite claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland, paid a visit to Modena in March 1717.

[2] Rinaldo first insisted that the betrothal remain secret, and then definitively refused his consent to it in September 1717, while James was living in Urbino.