House of Sanseverino

Last updated
House of Sanseverino
Casa di Sanseverino
Blason famille it Sanseverino.svg
Arms of House Sanseverino
Country
Founded1061
Founder Turgisio
Titles
  • Cardinal (non-hereditary)
  • The Prince of Bisignano
  • The Prince of Salerno
  • Duke of San Donato
  • Baron of Càlvera
  • Baron of Cilento
  • Baron of Diano
  • Baron of Lauria
  • Baron of Sanseverino
  • Baron of Sant'Angelo a Fasanella
  • Count of Caserta
  • Count of Chiaromonte
  • Count of Colorno
  • Count of Marsico
  • Count of Mileto
  • Count of Tricarico
  • Lord of Atena Lucana
  • Lord of Castelluccio
  • Lord of Centola
  • Lord of Corbella
  • Lord of Cosentino
  • Lord of Cuccaro
  • Lord of Monteforte
  • Lord of Padula
  • Lord of Pantoliano
  • Lord of Policastro
  • Lord of Polla
  • Lord of Postiglione
  • Lord of San Severino
  • Lord of Sanza
  • Lord of Serre
MottoNEC MORSUS TIMEBO (Latin for "I will fear no bite")
Cadet branches
  • Sanseverino of Marcellinara
  • Sanseverino of Colorno (extinct)
  • Sanseverino of San Donato (extinct)
  • Sanseverino of Bisignano (extinct)
  • Costa-Sanseverino (extinct)
  • Sanseverino of Lauro (extinct)
  • Sanseverino of Sesto Fiorentino (extinct)

The House of Sanseverino (also known as San Severino) was an Italian noble family that played a prominent role in the Kingdom of Sicily (prior to the War of the Sicilian Vespers) and were one of the seven great families in the Kingdom of Naples. The Marcellinara branch of this family continues to the present day.

Contents

History

Luigi II Sanseverino, Prince of Bisignano (by Giuseppe Bonito) Luigi II Sanseverino, principe di Bisignano.jpg
Luigi II Sanseverino, Prince of Bisignano (by Giuseppe Bonito)

The Sanseverino family originates from the Norman knight Turgisio of Arnes, an alleged descendant of the House of Normandy, who was invested with the county of Rota by Robert Guiscard in 1061. The name Sanseverino originates from the castle in Mercato San Severino which Turgisio adopted as his surname. In the struggle between the Aragonese and the Angevins for the throne of Naples, the family was divided: Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona, count of Caiazzo (d. 1487), supported Ferdinand I of Naples, but his son Galeazzo (d. 1525), who was married to a daughter of Ludovico Sforza, died fighting for the French at the battle of Pavia. The condottiere Ferdinando Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno (d. 1507), who was the patron of Bernardo Tasso, fought in the imperial army of Charles V. Ferrante was a resolute defender of Neapolitan rights in the face of imposed Spanish institutions and when the Spanish Inquisition was introduced in Naples in 1552 he was obliged to flee to France.

The family owned 300 fiefs, 40 counties, nine marquisates, twelve duchies and ten principalities, primarily located in Calabria, Campania, Basilicata, and Apulia. [1] From this family emerged cardinals, viceroys, marshals and condottieri . [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orsini family</span> Italian noble family

The House of Orsini is an Italian noble family that was one of the most influential princely families in medieval Italy and Renaissance Rome. Members of the Orsini family include five popes: Stephen II (752–757), Paul I (757–767), Celestine III (1191–1198), Nicholas III (1277–1280), and Benedict XIII (1724–1730). The family also included 34 cardinals, numerous condottieri, and other significant political and religious figures. The Orsini are part of the Black nobility who were Roman aristocratic families who supported the Popes in the governance of the Papal States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piero the Unfortunate</span> Lord of Florence (r. 1492–1494)

Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, called Piero the Fatuous or Piero the Unfortunate, was the lord of Florence from 1492 until his exile in 1494.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piccolomini</span> Italian noble family

The House of Piccolomini is the name of an Italian noble family, Patricians of Siena, who were prominent from the beginning of the 13th century until the 18th century. The family achieved the recognized titles of Pope of the Catholic Church, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Grandee of Spain, and Duke of Amalfi. The family is also featured in Florentine Histories, a book written by Niccolò Machiavelli, where he describes the reign of Pope Pius II, who had allied himself with the Venetians and Prince Vlad Dracula, to wage a war against the Sultan of the Ottoman empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caetani</span> Italian noble family

The House of Caetani, or Gaetani, is the name of an Italian noble family, originally from the city of Gaeta, connected by some to the lineage of the lords of the Duchy of Gaeta, as well as to the patrician Gaetani of the Republic of Pisa. It played an important role in Rome, in the Papal States and in the Kingdom of Naples, and later in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The Ventimiglia family was an old Italian noble family of Liguria. Descendants of the family held positions and titles of nobility in Sicily in Mediaeval times and later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pio di Savoia</span> Italian noble family, 14th - 17th century

The Pio family, later Pio di Savoia, an ancient noble Italian family, was first mentioned by good authorities in the 14th century. After having long contended for the city of Modena with the House of Este, in 1336 they eventually agreed to renounce it, on condition that they retained the smaller domain of Carpi for themselves. They maintained control of Carpi for nearly 200 years and later acquired the minor fiefs of Sassuolo, Meldola, and Sarsina, etc. Many members of the family were distinguished as condottieri, diplomats or ecclesiastics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marsico Nuovo</span> Comune in Basilicata, Italy

Marsico Nuovo is a town and comune of the province of Potenza in the Basilicata region of southern Italy. It was the seat of the bishops of Grumentum.

Monteroni di Lecce (Salentino: Muntrùni is a town and comune in the province of Lecce, in Apulia, southern Italy. In 2008, it had 13,800 inhabitants. It is 7 kilometres from Lecce, in the Salento – the historic Terra d'Otranto.

Ferdinando (Ferrante) Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno was an Italian condottiero with "Renaissance prince" ideals.

Sanseverino may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingdom of the Two Sicilies</span> State formed from the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples (1816–60)

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and land area in Italy before the Italian unification, comprising Sicily and most of the area of today's Mezzogiorno and covering all of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duke of San Donato</span>

Duke or Duchess San Donato was a noble title, first created in 1602 by the Spanish King Philip III for the House of Sanseverino. The duchy was traditionally based on estates and territories held in San Donato di Ninea, Calabria. The first creation, however, lasted only 52 years. In 1668, the title was recreated for a wealthy merchant, Antonio Amitrano, who had some years earlier bought the feudal rights over the former dukes' territories. Descendants of the Ametrano family held the duchy, as one several titles, until it became extinct in the 1970s. There have been successive claims over the centuries by distant kinsmen of the first holders to claim the duchy; these remain unverified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ettore Pignatelli, 1st Duke of Monteleone</span> Italian duke

Ettore Pignatelli was the first count and later duke of Monteleone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santi Severino e Sossio</span> Church in Campania, Italy

The church of Santi Severino e Sossio and the annexed monastery are located on via Bartolommeo Capasso in Naples, Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona</span> Italian condottiero (1418–1487)

Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona was an Italian condottiero, count of Colorno from 1458 to 1477 and count of Caiazzo from 1460 until his death in 1487. Highly esteemed man of arms, veteran of numerous battles, he was one of the greatest leaders of the Italian Renaissance.

The Conspiracy of the Barons was a revolution against Ferrante of Aragon, King of Naples by the Neapolitan aristocracy in 1485 and 1486. King Ferdinand the First, also known as Ferrante, aimed at dispelling the feudal particularism, strengthening the royal power as the only unquestionable source of authority. In that political and financial context a crash between the barons and the royalty was inevitable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vespasiano Colonna</span> Italian nobleman and condottiero (d. 1528)

Vespasiano Colonna was an Italian nobleman and condottiero, a member of the Colonna family.

Bertrand III of Baux, Count of Andria, Montescaglioso, and Squillace, Lord of Berre, Senator of Rome, Captain-General of Tuscany, and Justiciar of Naples, was born in August 1295 at Andria, Italy to Bertrand II of Baux and Berengaria of Andria. He married, as his first wife, Beatrice of Anjou, daughter of King Charles II of Naples, in 1309; she died c. 1321. His daughter was:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Novello da San Lucano</span> Italian architect and designer

Novello da San Lucano was an Italian architect and designer, mainly active in Naples.

Turgisio was a Norman knight who founded the House of Sanseverino.

References

  1. "Enciclopedia Treccani".
  2. Famiglia Sanseverino