Tolomei (family)

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Coat of arms of the Tolomei family

The Tolomei were an old and famous Sienese family that a docile genealogy with the Ptolemaic rulers of ancient Egypt wanted to combine some of which probably during the reign of the Great Charles into Tuscany came.

Legendary origin

Palazzo Tolomei in Siena

The origins of the family go back to the Ptolemies , who descended from the Dardanids , and to the Macedonian royal family of the Argeadians , who later became the Lagids . The creation of myths about their ancestors was quite common for many noble lords.

Legend has it that the union of Gaius Julius Caesar with Cleopatra VII the queen of Egypt , Ptolemy XV. gave birth, known as Caesarion, the only male son of the Führer and alleged heir to the Roman throne. After Caesar's death, the boy was brought to the Roman Senate by Marcus Antonius , a loyal general, who introduced him as the direct successor to the Julier (prestigious family in the family tree, the founder of Rome, entitled to the imperial throne). However, the Senate, which did not recognize Caesar's union with Queen Cleopatra, pointed to Octavian , Caesar's nephew and adoptive son, as the legitimate successor. Octavian had Caesarion sentenced to death in adulthood for fear of his revenge. A descendant of the Egyptian kings would have landed on the peninsula and would have continued the line.

Historical references

The first documented member of the family is Baldistricca Tolomei in 1121 . In the 12th century , Baron Alemanni, a descendant of this man who lived under Pope Gregory I , founded the Tolomei family in Siena.

The Tolomei were a very wealthy merchant family who lived in Siena, where they had the historic palace of the same name built in 1205 . After the agonizing political events in the Republic of Siena, in which the dynasty was very active, some representatives of the Tolomai were banished from the city, which favored the emergence of some branch lines in other regions. They owned numerous fiefs in Tuscany.

The main branch moved on the orders of Innocent VI. to Rome: Raimondo Tolomei was appointed head of the Senate in 1358. The Tolomei built their Roman residence in the Trastevere district , where you can still admire the coat of arms on the tower in Via dell'Arco dei Tolomei, where the headquarters of the Italian Jewish Center "Pitigliani" is located.

In 1503 they bought from the Colonna family the fiefs of the territories of the free municipalities of Collepardo , Guarcino , Vico nel Lazio , up to the heights of Anticoli di Campagna . On behalf of Claudio Tolomei, the Castello di Collepardo with its portal from 1606 and the Palace of Vico in Lazio were built.

They owned administrative, judicial and clerical offices in memory of Count Maximinus Tolomei, notary in Guarcino.

This also included the Pia de 'Tolomei and the scholar Claudio Tolomei mentioned by Dante, in the 5th Canto of Purgatory .

Two branches of the Sienese family lived in Perugia from the 14th to the 18th century . The Tolomei della Stella and the Tolomei di Porta Santa Susanna: these was Scipione Tolomei ( 1553 - 1630 ) to, political writer and court secretary of the Della Corgna, Duke of Castiglione del Lago.

The line of Tolomei dell'Assassino lived in Ferrara in the 14th century : Stella , daughter of Giovanni and lover of Niccolò III d'Este , was the mother of Ugo and the dukes Leonello and Borso .

The Pistoia branch died out with the death of Countess Sofia Manni, widow of Count Filippo Tolomei.

Today the branches of Rome, Collepardo and Florence are preserved.

In the cloister of the Basilica of San Francesco there is a noble grave of the Sienese Tolomei, where the eighteen citizens murdered by the Salimbeni antagonists were also buried.

credentials

  1. ↑ a b Giuseppe Corradi, "Tolomei".
  2. ↑ a b Corradi, p.70
  3. ↑ Mucciarelli, p. 10
  4. ↑ Mucciarelli, p. 40
  5. ↑ Mucciarelli, p. 56
  6. ↑ Mucciarelli, p. 60
  7. ↑ Agostini, p. 136
  8. ↑ Donati-Guerrieri, p. 80
  9. ↑ Gli Estensi , p. 35

literature

  • Bruno Rossi: Gli Estensi . In: Le grandi famiglie d'Europa . tape 13 . Mondadori, Milan 1972 (Italian).
  • E. Agostini: Famiglie perugine . tape 210 . Archivio Storico di San Pietro, Perugia (Italian).
  • G. Corradi: voce Tolomei . In: Grande dizionario enciclopedico . tape XII . Turin 1962 (Italian).
  • MG Donati-Guerrieri: Lo Stato di Castiglione del Lago ei della Corgna . Grafica, Perugia 1972 (Italian).
  • R. Mucciarelli: I Tolomei banchieri di Siena . Protagon, Siena 1995 (Italian).
  • S. Tolomei: Lettere . Stamperia Augusta ,, Perugia 1617 (Italian).

See also