Familial Advancement in the De’ Grassi Archive at the Archivio di Stato di Bologna

• In Event: Family Archives, Families in the Archives II: Italy

Abstract

The De’ Grassi were a patrician family active in Bolognese civic and religious life from the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. Today the family remains clearly documented through its archive, which describes a family that progressed from membership in the notarial guild to the Senate, and from occupying cathedral canonries to seats in the College of Cardinals. Through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the de’ Grassi expanded their reach beyond the city of Bologna, thus increasing their prestige within the city. This presentation will show how the family built itself up by acquiring rights of patronage in the rural pievi, rights of regression to ecclesiastical offices, and specific noble attributes that allowed them local prestige. Because these strategies were well known, but not always exploited to the fullest extent or as early as de’ Grassi did, this family appears as an emblem for the development of the Bolognese patrician class in the early modern period.

Author

• Jennifer Mara DeSilva, Ball State University