CHAPTER VIII




ROMAN PRINCELY FAMILIES







To be a patrician of Rome is to possess one of the proudest of
titles, and from the senator of the ancient city to the prince of to-
day the aristocracy of Rome has been one of its most vital and
characteristic institutions.

Though the Roman cardinal as a prince of the Church has always been
admitted, whatever his origin, within the pale, the Roman nobility
with the rarest exceptions has never swelled its ranks with newcomers
owing their titles to acquired wealth or successful public life, but,
conservative and exclusive, preserves the traditions of the past and
forms a society unlike any other in Europe.

The greater number of the princely families whose names are familiar
to every sojourner in Rome date their connection with the city from
the fifteenth century and onwards, when the popes ceased to be chosen
from among the Romans, and a new aristocracy grew up, the creation of
successive pontiffs, who, themselves reigning but not hereditary
sovereigns, wished to raise their relatives to a rank second only to
their own.

Others trace their descent from some medireval chieftain, or are
feudal in origin, and these alone are indigenous to the city and its
surroundings, and their history is indissolubly woven into the
records of Rome's past. For many dark centuries, during a barbarous
period of bloodshed crime and cruelty, the history of Rome was what
her great nobles made it; and they in their turn rose to fame and
power or sank into oblivion, leaving no traces or but the scantiest
records of their fate. The great mediaeval family of Conti, Counts of
Segni, whose race gave four popes to Rome, among them the great
Innocent III., have disappeared from history, leaving as a
magnificent monument to their greatness the huge tower which bears
their name.

In the twelfth century, the Sabine Savelli and the Jewish Pierleoni
were great and prominent. Streets and piazzas called after them in
the region near the crowded little Piazza Montanara testify to their
importance. The Savelli dwelt in a castle in the Via di Monserrato.
It was afterwards turned into a prison, the Corte Savella, and here
for a time the unhappy Beatrice Cenci and her accomplices were
confined. Both Savelli and Pierleoni successively occupied a
stronghold erected within the ancient walls of the theatre of
Marcellus, and a fortified palace which stood against it, now Orsini
property. One of the Savelli popes, Honorius IV., built himself a
castle on the Aventine, and at one period the whole of the hill was
entrenched and fortified, the ancient temple of Libertas on its
summit being transformed into a citadel. These immense buildings have
crumbled away, and the sole monuments that remain to record the past
greatness of this family are the tombs of Pope Honorius, of his
father and mother, and of other Savellis in their chapel in the
church of Ara Coeli on the Capitol.

The Pierleoni, a rich and prolific race, descendants of it learned
Jew convert of the time of Pope Leo IX., filled important posts and
made alliances with the great houses of Rome, and in I 130 a member
of this Jewish family was elected and reigned several years in the
Vatican as the antipope Anacletus-an event unparalleled in history.
After the thirteenth century this name also slips out of historical
records and is heard of no more.

The ancient consular race of the Frangipani have left to Rome some
fine monuments in the church of San Marcello in the Corso, and the
name is still borne by a Marquess in Udine, but they are no longer
numbered amongst the princely houses. They earned their appellation
of bread-breakers from having distributed bread in a great famine,
but in the middle ages their name spelt terror rather than
benevolence. They were a power not lightly to be reckoned with. Great
allies of the papal party, they more than once gave sanctuary to
fugitive popes in their strong Turris Cartularia, the ruins of which
can still be seen near the church of S. Gregory. In the thirteenth
century this tower fell into the hands of the Imperialists, and was
utterly destroyed with all the archives which had been stored there
for safety. It formed an outpost in a chain of fortifications with
which the Frangipani and their allies the Corsi enclosed a large
portion of the city, Their main stronghold was built amongst the
ruins of the Palatine, with flanking towers on the Colosseum and on
the triumphal arches of Constantine, Titus, and Janus. From this
dominating position they could take the field or rush upon their foes
in the city at the head of hundreds of armed retainers. Another
medireval family, the Anguillara, has been merged in the Orsini,
leaving a solitary tower in Trastevere to commemorate a once great
and powerful race.

But of all the feudal princes of Rome none played so conspicuous a
part as the Orsini and Colonna, and this not alone in the history of
their own city, for their names were famous throughout Europe for
many centuries. These two great families were hereditary enemies and
belonged to rival factions. The Colonna were Ghibellines,
Imperialists, the Orsini Guelphs, supporters of the papacy, and when
they were not fighting in support of their political parties they
were engaged in private feuds on their own account. While in other
cities of Italy feudal tyranny was gradually giving way before the
more enlightened government of independent republics, Rome was too
weak to struggle against her oppressors. Deserted and neglected for
nearly a century by her lawful sovereigns the popes, at best ruled by
a vacillating and disorderly government, the city lay at the mercy of
her great barons who scorned all law and authority and asserted and
maintained their complete personal independence at the point at the
sword, while they swelled the ranks of their retainers with bandits
and cut-throats to whom they gave

sanctuary in return for military service. Great and prosperous Rome
had become a small forsaken town within a desolate waste, surrounded
by a girdle of ancient walls far too large for the city it protected.
Amphitheatres, mausoleums of Roman Emperors, temples, theatres, were
converted into strongholds. Such of the churches as were not
fortified were crumbling into ruin, and everywhere bristled loop-
holed towers from which the nobles could defy one another, and which
commanded the entrances to dark filthy and winding streets. At
frequent intervals the despondent apathy of the citizens would be
rudely disturbed by a call to arms, and to the sound of hoarse battle-
cries, the clashing of weapons upon steel corslet and helmet, and the
waving of banners with the rival Ghibelline and Guelph devices of
eagle and keys, bands of Orsini and Colonna would rush fighting
through the narrow streets and across the waste spaces of the city,
would fall back and advance to fight again until, with the darkness,
they would retire behind their barred gateways, leaving their dead as
so much carrion in the streets.
These two families divided the greater part of Rome between them. The
Orsini held the field of Mars and the Vatican district from their
fortress in the ruins of the theatre of Pompey and their castle on
Monte Giordano. This is now Palazzo Gabrielli, and it retains its
portcullis and much of its mediaeval appearance. Tor di Nona and Tor
Sanguigna were flanking towers to the Orsini stronghold. The Quirinal
hill was occupied by the Colonna, their great castle standing almost
on the same ground as their present palazzo, and they had an outlying
fortress in the mausoleum of Augustus near the river.

Occasionally a truce was patched up between the two families that
they might unite against a common enemy, and for a period they agreed
that two senators, one from each family, should be appointed to
govern Rome in the pope's absence. But these peaceful intervals were
short lived. On the slightest provocation, barricades would be run
up, new entrenchments dug, and civil war would break out afresh.

Again and again in their conflict with the Church the Colonna were
worsted in the struggle, their estates confiscated, and themselves,
root and branch, beggared and exiled; but there was a strength and
vitality about the race that no adversity could subdue. Pope Boniface
VIII., whose displeasure they had incurred, oppressed them for a
while. Six Colonna brothers were exiled, and their ancestral town of
Palestrina was razed to the ground by the Caetani, Boniface's
relatives and adherents, and a plough was driven over the site to
typify its permanent devastation. But a few years later the reckless
Sciarra Colonna broke into the Pope's castle at Anagni, and made him
prisoner with bitter taunts and reproaches. Later, Sciarra played a
conspicuous part in the coronation of Lewis the Bavarian, and in
gratitude for his services the Emperor allowed the single column of
the family coat of arms to be surmounted by a golden crown.

Greatest amongst the six brothers of this period was Stephen,
Petrarch's friend, an able man and good soldier who met prosperity
and adversity, poverty banishment and danger, throughout a long
troubled life, with the same cal m resolution and intrepid courage.
This Stephen survived the last of his line-his two sons Stephen and
Peter with two grandsons being massacred after an unsuccessful
skirmish against Rienzo.

After Boniface's death, the Colonna came into their own again and
received one hundred thousand gold florins in compensation for their
losses, but Palestrina, which was later rebuilt, suffered again the
same fate and was torn down by order of Eugenius IV. within one
hundred and fifty years.

In the reign of Sixtus IV. Rome was again distracted by faction
feuds. The Pope, aided by the everready Orsini, pursued the Colonna
with relentless hatred. Protonotary Lorenzo Colonna fell through
treachery into the hands of his enemy, and his friend Savelli was
captured and murdered on the spot for refusing to rejoice with the
captors. Lorenzo was tortured and beheaded, and the Orsini sacked and
burnt all the Colonna property in the town.

Other distinguished members of this distinguished family of a later
epoch were Vittoria Colonna, the poetfriend of Michael Angelo, and
Marc' Antonio, who commanded the papal fleet at Lepanto, and who was
given a triumphal entry into Rome after his victory.

Nothing is known of the origin of this famous race though it is
believed to have come originally from the banks of the Rhine. It
first appears in history in 1104, when the Lords of Colonna and
Zagarolo characteristically incurred the displeasure of Pope Paschal
II. They also owned part of Tusculum and were probably related to the
Counts of that place. Later, Palestrina became their principal
stronghold and they possessed Marino, Grotta Ferrata, Genazzano, and
Paliano in the Sabines, the last giving them their princely title.
The famil y produced many distinguished churchmen, but only one pope,
Martin V. Many daughters of the house took the veil, and in the year
13 I 8 as many as twelve had entered the convent of S. Silvestro in
Capite, which had been founded by the cardinal members of the family.

In 1490 a Colonna was appointed for the first time to be constable of
the kingdom of Naples, and it was popularly believed in Rome that the
Pope excommunicated the King of Naples every vigil of S. Peter (28th
June) because he had failed to proffer the tribute of his
investiture. The formula ran: "I curse and bless you," and as the
curse was uttered the Colonna palace trembled. This palace stands on
the slopes of the Quirinal; it is entered from the Piazza dei SS.
Apostoli, but the gardens cover the slopes of the hill as far as the
Via del Quirinale, bridges connecting palace and gardens crossing the
Via della Pilotta at frequent intervals. It was built by Martin V.
for his personal use, and contains a fine picture gallery and
magnificent suite of state rooms. After nearly eight centuries of
life this family is still among the greatest and most distinguished
in Rome. One prince of the name is now Syndic of the city, another
shares the peaceful office of Prince Assistant at the Pontifical
throne with the descendant of his ancient enemies, Filippo Orsini.

The career of the Orsini race has been no less eventful, but this
family has now died out in many of its branches. In a metrical
account of the coronation of Boniface VIII., written by Cardinal St.
George and quoted by Gibbon, the Orsini are said to come from
Spoleto. Other writers believe them to have been of French origin,
but at an early date they became identified with the history of Rome,
and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries two members of the family
became popes, Celestin III. in I 19 I, and Nicholas III. in 1277. The
last Orsini pope was the Benedictine monk Benedict XIII. (1724).

In the sixteenth century the Orsini fell under the Pope's
displeasure, the head of the family was banished and his estates were
confiscated. This individual, Giordano Orsini Duke of Bracciano,
became enamoured of Vittoria Accoramboni, wife of Francesco Peretti,
Sixtus V.'s nephew. Vittoria was beautiful fascinating and
unscrupulous, and Giordano, no less unscrupulous, did not hesitate to
rid himself of the obstacles to his desires. His own wife he
strangled in his castle at Bracciano, and Francesco was set upon and
murdered in the streets of Rome by his orders and with the connivance
of Vittoria and her brother. Orsini and Vittoria were married, but
their union was of short duration. Sixtus V. had been meanwhile
elected to the papacy, and he lost no time in disgracing and
banishing Giordano whose end in exile is shrouded in mystery.
Vittoria was shortly afterwards surprised and brutally killed by her
husband's relatives for the sake of the Orsini inheritance.

The Orsini estates were at Bracciano, Anguillara, and Galera, but the
Bracciano property with the ducal title that went with it now belongs
to the Odescalchi. In Rome the Orsini still own and inhabit their
great palace near the portico of Octavia. It was designed by
Baldassare Peruzzi and was built within the ruins of the theatre of
Marcellus, the high ground upon which it stands being merely a heap
of fallen debris. It is approached through a gateway flanked by stone
bears, the emblem of the Orsini race.

Another medireval family, the Gaetani or Caetani, Dukes of Sermoneta
and Princes of Caserta and Teano, is of Neapolitan origin. One of its
members became pope as Gelasius II. in I I 18 and the first of the
name was military prefect under Manfred, King of Sicily, but the
close union of this family with Rome only dates from the reign of the
Gaetani pope, Boniface VIII. It was at this period also that the tomb
of Cecilia Metella on the Appian Way was disguised with turrets and
battlements to serve the Gaetani as an outlying stronghold against
their enemies.

Of all the princely names which figure in the records of medireval
Rome, none can claim a more venerable antiquity than the Annibaldi,
the Massimo, and the Cenci. The first, of the race of the great
Hannibal, are no longer extant. The Massimi, who derive their name
from the ancient family of Maximus, are Dukes of Rignano, Princes of
Roviano, and heirs to many other titles; they are still amongst the
greatest of Rome. The present prince lives in the family palace in
the Corso Vittorio Emanuele familiar to every tourist from its curved
fa~ade and rows of columns, and still keeps up much of the princely
state and ceremony of a past age. The Cenci have become extinct in
the male line and the name is carried on by a distant branch as Cenci-
Bolognetti.

This family is first heard of in the person of Marcus Cencius,
Prefect of Pisa in the year 457 of Rome; and in 9 14 Johannes Cenci
us was elected Pope as John X. In 1692 the Cenci were created Princes
of Vicovaro, a little mountain town in the Sabines, and in 1723 they
acquired the title and estates of Bolognetti by the marriage of
Virginius with an heiress of that name. "With her came into the
family the dower-house, the graceful Palazzo Bolognetti-Cenci still
standing in the Piazza Pantaleone. The Bolognetti palace in the
Piazza di Venezia was sold to Prince Torlonia, and has just been
destroyed to make way for the colossal monument to Victor Emmanuel
which is to preside over Rome from the Capitol hill. The old Cenci
palace, a few years ago empty and deserted, but now government
property, stands in what was once the Jews' quarter of Rome, a
forbidding pile eloquent of its owner's tragic history. The family
chapel close to it, San Tommaso a' Cenci, dates from I I 13 and was
built by a Cenci who was Bishop of Sabina at that time.

As these old families, " pure Romans of Rome," have died out, their
place has been taken by the aristocracy of papal origin, and though
as a rule natives of northern provinces, these newcomers have become
Roman in sympathies and have inherited the privileges and traditions
of the Roman patrician. Not only did each new pope bring his own
relatives to Rome in his train and grant them titles, but he also
gathered round him followers from his own province among whom he
distributed the great papal offices. Sometimes the period of
greatness thus bestowed was short-lived, in other cases a permanent
aristocracy was created and the papal offices became hereditary. Thus
the Ruspoli from father to son are Masters of the Sacred Hospice; the
Colonna are Assistant Princes; the Serlupi are Marshals of the Pope's
Horse; the Sforza have the hereditary right to appoint the standard-
bearer of the Roman people; the Chigi are Marshals of Conclave,
replacing the Savelli in this office who had held it for nearly five
centuries.

Some of these families were nobles in their own province. The
Bonconpagni were a noble family of Bologna. Coming to Rome with
Gregory XIII. in 1572, they were created Dukes of Sora and later
Princes of Piombino and of Venosa.

The Ludovisi were nobles of Pisa, the Borghese patricians of Siena.
This great family came to Rome with Paul V. in the early seventeenth
century, and was granted princely rank with the title of Sui mona. In
the middle of the eighteenth century, Marc' Antonio Borghese married
a Salviati heiress and at that period was owner of the beautiful
Villa Borghese with its museum and priceless collection of statues,
of the great palace by the Tiber, of the villas Mondragone and
Aldobrandini at Frascati, and of thirty-six estates in the campagna,
building and endowing at the same period the rich Borghese chapel in
S. Maria Maggiore. At a later date, Camillo Borghese married Pauline
Bonaparte and was appointed governor of Piedmont by Napoleon I. Of
late years this family has been almost ruined by reckless building
speculations, and the greater portion of their magnificent
possessions has been sold and alienated. The Aldobrandini and
Salviati are both off-shoots from this family.

The Barberini and Corsini are Florentines, and came to Rome with
Urban VIII. and Clement XII. The Barberini villa at Castel Gandolfo
and the palace in Rome are familiar to all visitors. The grounds of
the Corsini villa on the Janiculum have been recently converted into
a public drive; the Corsini palace in Trastevere on the river bank is
famous for its library and picture galleries. Opposite to it is the
Fart1esina palace built in the sixteenth century by the rich banker
Agostino Chigi. Here it was that he gave a famous banquet and,
desiring to make a display of his enormous wealth, bade his lackeys
throw the silver dishes into the river at the end of each course
under the eyes of his astonished guests who did not guess that nets
had been cunningly laid to catch them as they sank.

The Albani kinsmen of Clement XI. came from Urbino; the Rospigliosi
from Pistoja with Clement IX.; the Odescalchi trom Como with Innocent
XI.; the Doria Pamphili from Genoa.

This papal aristocracy occupied a unique position. Relatives of
popes, who were at the same time reigning princes, they assumed royal
rank and lived with a magnificence and luxury unsurpassed in Europe.
In addition to the titles of Roman nobility bestowed upon them with a
lavish hand, many of them became grandees of Spain and their names
were inscribed in the " golden book" of the Capitol.

They bought country estates and suburban villas and built great
palaces in the Rome. These stately Renaissance buildings, some of
them larger than many royal dwellings, are grouped at the base of the
Capitol and along the Corso, the most important and at one period the
only great street in Rome. The Palazzo di Venezia, the home of the
Venetian Paul II., the Altieri, the Grazioli, and the Bonaparte
palaces, the latter originally the property of the Rinuccini, stand,
a stately group, on the Piazza di Venezia and the Via del Plebiscito.
The series is continued along the Piazza dei SS. A postoli with the
Colonna, the Balestra, the Odescalchi, and the Ruffo palaces.

Greatest among those in the Corso is the Palazzo Doria Pamphili. Here
also are the Ruspoli, Fiano, Chigi, Sciarra, Sal viati, Ferraioli,
and Theodoli palaces, and before its demolition to enlarge the Piazza
Colonna, the Piombino. The Costaguti in the Piazza Tartaruga, the
Antici-Mattei, the Longhi and the Gactani palaces, the latter in the
Via delle Botteghe Oscure, "the street of dark shops," are grouped at
the foot of a further slope of the Capitol. More to the west, stand
the huge Farnese palace the present seat of the French embassy and
the Cancelleria built by Cardinal Riario nephew of Sixtus IV. and
still papal property. The Simonetti and Falconieri palaces are built
upon the banks of the Tiber close by, and face Via Giulia.

Latest of all the great papal families to settle in Rome were the
Braschi, Pius VI.'s kinsmen, and they built a palace in the Piazza
Navona. Not far off are the Patrizi and Giustiniani palaces near the
French church of San Luigi in the street of the same name. The
Giustiniani are Earls of Newburgh in the peerage of Scotland through
the marriage in 1757 of the heiress of the title and estates to the
Prince Giustiniani of that date.

Great was the opulence and magnificence of the Roman princes. When
they issued forth into the city they were attended by mounted grooms
with staves while running footmen cleared a way before them. An army
of servants waited upon their needs, their stables were filled with
horses, and their coaches were wonderful equipages of gilding glass
and painting, costing thousands of francs. Powdered flunkeys in silk
stockings stood behind on the foot board, three on a prince's coach,
two on a cardinal's. One of these men carried an umbrella and a
cushion. For if during his drive the prince chanced to meet his
Holiness the Pope or a religious procession in which the Host was
carried, he would instantly stop his coach, and alighting wauL kneel
upon the ground, the cushion being placed by his servants under his
knees and the umbrella held over his bared head to protect it from
the sun.

Many of the Roman nobles had private theatres in their houses; they
were great collectors of books, bronzes, tapestries, and mosaics, and
the Roman private galleries of pictures and statues are unsurpassed.
The Borghese alone possessed four Raphaels as well as their famous
collection of statues. At the same time they were generous to the
city of their adoption. They threw open their beautiful parks and
villas to the people, they admitted the public to their galleries
museums and libraries, and they endowed hospitals asylums and
orphanages. The Roman ladies had always patronised and promoted works
of charity. Nevertheless the later custom, which persists to this
day, of personally visiting the poor and the hospitals began with
Gwendoline Talbot, the daughter of the last Catholic Earl of
Shrewsbury, who as the wife of Prince Borghese was the first of the
Roman ladies to walk alone at all hours, intent on her errands of
mercy. The wit which made her present a gold coin "0 a man who on one
occasion followed her, was the talk of the city. Her name is still a
household word in Roman mouths, and her tragic death when only twenty-
four years old, leaving four little children, one only of whom, the
present Princess Piombino, survived the infection which killed their
mother, moved an entire population.

Many of the Roman palaces are as big as barracks. The Palazzo
Pamphili-Doria can accommodate a thousand persons; but this ,vas none
too large for a patriarchal style of living which in a modified form
survives to the present day. Much space was taken up by the great
libraries, museums, picture galleries and reception and state
banqueting halls. A small army of officials were housed within the
walls--steward, bailiff, major-domo, secretaries, accountants, all
the underlings necessary to the management of great and distant
estates. A wing would be set entirely apart for the Prince Cardinal,
a cadet of the house; the domestic chaplain would require a set of
rooms; he would say the daily mass in the private chapel of the
palace but would not dine with the family. The sons of the house
would require tutors, the daughters governesses and companions.

The great double gates of every Roman palace which are securely
locked and barred at night, lead into a central court. Round it are
open colonnades, sometimes in two stories, and in the centre a
fountain splashes amidst ferns and palms. A porter presides over the
palace gates, magnificent in a cocked hat knee breeches and long coat
trimmed with coloured braid into which are worked the heraldic
devices of the family. His rod of office is a long staff twisted with
cord and crowned with an immense silver knob. This personage is the
descendant of the janitor who in ancient Rome watched the house door
day and night and whose fidelity was ensured when necessary by
chaining him to his post.

A grand staircase leads to the first floor and this, the piano
nobile, was and still is occupied in Roman houses by the head of the
family whose rule is more or less absolute and tyrannical. The second
floor is given up to the eldest son upon his marriage for his own
use, and similarly the second son is given the one above, while
beneath the roof accommodation is found for an immense retinue of
servants and attendants. It is still the custom for the whole family,
married sons and their families included, to dine together, and
elaborate accounts are kept of the allowances given to each son, of
the quota contributed by each to the general expenses, of the dowry
of each daughter-in-law, as to whether she is enjoying the number of
dishes of meat per meal and the number of horses and carriages
stipulated for in her marriage settlement. In the case of an English
wife, a carpet used to be among the stipulations.

Though the state coaches, the running footmen, much of the pomp and
ceremony have disappeared, some curious relics remain of an order of
things fast passing away. Every Roman prince has the right, should he
wish it, to be received at the foot of the great staircase of any
house he honours with his presence by two lackeys bearing lighted
torches; and these should escort him to the threshold of his
hostess's reception room. This ceremony is still observed for
cardinals on state occasions.

Again every prince has the right to, and in fact still has, a throne
room and throne in his palace. This is not for his own use, but for
that of the Pope should he eject to pay him a visit. In the hall of a
Roman palace a shield emblazoned with the family arms may be seen
affixed to the wall. In a prince's house it will be surmounted by a
canopy, beside it should stand the historic umbrella and cushion.
Four marquesses and these only the marquesses Patrizi, Theodoli,
Costaguti and Cavalieri enjoy the princes' right to the canopy above
their shield and are hence called the marchesi di baldacchino.

A good deal of natural confusion exists in the mind of the foreigner
with regard to the different ranks and the distribution of titles in
the Italian peerage. These in fact follow no general rule but depend
in each case upon the patent of creation. Princely titles conferred
by the Holy Roman Empire affect every member of the family equally;
titles conferred by the Pope, on the other hand, are as a rule
restricted to the head of the family only. Thus in the Colonna family
every member is a prince or princess; amongst the Ruspoli, a papal
creation, only the head of the eldest branch is legally a prince. In
these latter cases however it is usual to give the eldest son one of
the other family titles upon his marriage, and the same with the
second son. Such an act is in the father's option, but he is obliged
to notify the assumption of the title to the civil authorities. In
the same way a certain amount of latitude is allowed him as to the
title he uses himself or grants to his sons. Prince Gaetani, for
example, prefers to be known by the older title in his family, that
of Duke of Sermoneta, bestowing that of Prince di Caserta upon his
eldest son. The titles Don and Donna are only correct for the sons
and daughters of princes and of the four marchesi di bald({cchino,
though they are often used for all the children of marquesses.

In the same way, the distribution of the other titles of Marquess,
Count or Baron amongst the various members of the family depends upon
the terms of the original patent. In some cases every member bears
the title, in others the head of the family only. Collaterals of a
house often take the style Giovanni dei Principi N----, or dei Conti
N----- as the case might be; "John of the Princes So-and-so," or "of
the Counts So-and-so."

The distinction again between the patrician and the noble is one that
is not understood by the foreigner. A patrician belongs by ancestral
prescriptive right to the governing class of his province. The names
of the patricians are balloted annually, and one of the number is
chosen as Prior or Governor of the province. He is in fact and
history of senatorial rank. Among the districts of Italy some have
and some have not a patriciate. Spoleto possesses one, but Todi, next
to it) has never had one.

In Rome the patrician families are called" Coscritti" in allusion to
the Patres conscripti or senators of the city. Their number was
limited and defined by a constitution of Benedict XIV. but later
popes have added new names. There are now sixty patrician families.

The nobles, on the other hand, often owed their titles not only to
the Pope but to their respective

Communes, which, until the one fount of honour was defined to be the
sovereign, frequently bestowed titles on their citizens. This
privilege was enjoyed by the abbots of Monte Cassino in the
thirteenth century. The popes have always conferred titles of
nobility, as did the Holy Roman Empire, whose heir in this matter the
Pope claims to be. At present an Heraldic Commission is sitting in
Rome to regulate the use of titles, many of which have been assumed
for generations without any warrant. Henceforth everyone will be
called upon to prove his right to the title he bears, and it will be
illegal for the Communes to describe anyone who has not done so with
"a handle to his name." Foreign titles, and among them papal titles,
will in all cases have to be ratified and allowed by the sovereign of
Italy.

Rome painted by
Alberto Pisa

Author: Alberto Pisa, Text by M.A.R. Tuker
Editor:Adam Charles Black
Published: 1905