The Borgo San Giovanni includes the north and north-east areas outside the city walls of Ferrara, coinciding with a big part to the ancient Barco, that extended up to the banks of the Po river: it was a big woody and grassy clearing used by the Estensi for hunting and horse races. Inside this area, near the fourteenth-walls, prestigious buildings were built, as the temple of Santa Maria degli Angeli and the Estense residence of Belfiore with its notorious cabinet of the Muses, a pictorial unique specimen in the contemporary art history, though they are no more existing.
The heraldic device represents the left-turned head lynx, sitting on a precious embroidered pillow, on a red and blue background. Maybe it was already adopted by the marquess Niccolò III d’Este and was particularly used by his son Leonello as symbol of far-seeing intellect. The medieval bestiaries gave to the feline the gift of a sharp sight, able to go beyond the walls. By representing it blindfolded (quite often together with the motto Quae vides ne vide), Leonello d’Este wanted to highlight a necessary quality for a good prince, that is to be able to see everything but with pretence, revealing only what was essential to know for the welfare of the State.