The Roman Aristocracy Since 1870

Extract

With the signing of the Lateran Treaty, the two parties of the ‘Blacks’ and the ‘Whites’ have disappeared from the Roman aristocracy. When, in 1870, the temporal power of the Popes over Rome ceased to exist, the Roman aristocracy could not forget its origin, and maintained with dignity an attitude of fidelity and respect towards the Papacy. The princely families of that time—and nearly all of them still exist—owed, with very rare exceptions, their own rise to the Papacy. It is certain that already in the seventeenth century the feudal nobility of the Middle Ages had disappeared. The few families which descended from them, such as Colonna, Caffarelli, Orsini, Conti, Massimo, Savelli, Publicola-Santacroce, while unable to consider themselves created by the Popes, had received from them in later times so many benefits that they were much on a level with those who owed their greatness exclusively to the circumstance of having seen one of their own blood on the Throne of St. Peter. Such was the case of the greater number: Borghese, Barberini, Aldobrandini, Odescalchi, Ottoboni, Altieri, Boncompagni-Ludovisi, Rospigliosi, Chigi, and Braschi. There were Papal families who did not live in Rome, such as the Corsini, returned to Florence, the Carafa, and the Pignatelli, re-established at Naples. In the list of the Roman Princes one also found the Ruspoli, Antici-Mattei, Lante, Cenci-Bolognetti, Sforza-Cesarini, Giusiniani-Bandini, Doria-Pamphili, and Del Drago, promoted from the marquisate to the principality on the occa-sion of a conspicuous marriage, and finally the Torlonia, the last-comers, who had gained the coat-of-arms and the closed coronet by services rendered to the Pontifical State.