Are there any titled Italian families today?
There are several institutions which occasionally recognise Italian nobiliary titles in some way, albeit not on behalf of the Italian government. The Italian state has not recognised titles of nobility since 1948, and affords such titles no legal protection except in very rare cases of civil law where both impersonation and financial fraud are involved. In certain cases, the predicato (territorial designation) of a titled family may be recognised as part of one’s legal surname, but this requires a court decree. The various Italian heraldic and genealogical agencies and societies cannot grant legal recognition to a title of nobility, though many would have you believe otherwise. Yet, accurate genealogical research is the only mechanism that can prove a valid claim. Numerous Italian families descend from the untitled nobility, members of the landed gentry entitled to historical coats of arms, but in practise this form of ancestral nobility has not usually been recognised in Italy, where
