Ginevra d'Este (24 March 1419 - 12 October 1440) was an Italian noblewoman. She and her twin sister Lucia (died 1437) were daughters of Niccolò III d'Este and his second wife Parisina Malatesta - they also had a younger brother, who died aged a few months. She was the first of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta's three wives.
Her mother was accused of infidelity with Ugo d'Este, Ginevra's half-brother and he and Parisina were condemned to death by Niccolò when Ginevra was aged six. Five years later Niccolò remarried to Ricciarda di Saluzzo, giving Ginevra two other half-brothers (Ercole and Sigismondo), in addition to her father's other illegitimate children.
She married Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, in Rimini in February 1434.[1]
On her death in 1440 she was buried in the Tempio Malatestiano.[2] In 1461 Pope Pius II accused Pandolfo of several crimes, including killing Ginevra, and excommunicated him.[3]
Ginevra is briefly mentioned in The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde as its claimed her husband gave her poison "in an emerald cup"