Libro d'Oro della Nobiltà italiana (official register)
The Libro d'Oro della Nobiltà italiana is an official public register kept in Rome. It lists noble families that were admitted by a grace from the king or by recognition of an ancient title by the Heraldic Council (Consulta Araldica) during the Kingdom of Italy and, before 1962, in the Italian Republic. Each family has one or more pages with: its country of origin, where the family lives, the noble titles and how they were created or passed down, applicable laws, the family blazons, and part of the genealogy. This is the first official nobility register of the Kingdom of Italy; it should not be confused with a private work also called Libro d'Oro della Nobiltà italiana.
The register is kept at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome and was prepared by the Consulta Araldica, a state body created in 1869 in the Ministry of the Interior. For direct descendants, civil status documents were enough to annotate the name; for collateral lines linked to the progenitor only after ennoblement, the necessary civil documents were required and often the consent of the original registrant or their heirs. In many cases, people had to request a new decree of recognition. Registration in the Libro d'Oro could be challenged in the Council of State on grounds of legitimacy. To be inscribed, applicants had to submit a request, pay fees, and obtain registration at the Corte dei Conti; a decree would then be sent within the law’s terms. Being from a noble family was not enough on its own.
Royal Decree no. 1990 of 7 September 1933 set rules for compiling the Libro d'Oro and required people listed in the official nobiliary lists to apply for registration after recognition. The register consists of many handwritten volumes in two series and today remains at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome-EUR. From the start of the Italian Republic, noble titles were not recognized and the Consulta Araldica stopped functioning, so the register stopped being updated. Before unification, many states had their own official lists of noble families known as Libro d'Oro, including Venice’s famous Golden Book. The Venetian Libro d'Oro was closed in 1797, and similar lists existed in other cities such as Genoa, Murano, and the Ionian Islands.
The Consulta Araldica was set up to prevent abuses and kept a Register of Noble Titles, making official registration necessary to publicly use a title. In 1889 a national list of families with noble decrees, plus 14 regional lists, was created. In 1896 a national Libro d'oro was published, and in 1921 an Official List of Noble and Titled Families was approved, with an asterisk for those already in the Golden Book. A second Official List was issued in 1933, including a Predicate of Peerage. If families on the 1921 list did not file the necessary documents within three years, they could be removed from the 1933 list.
After World War II and the monarchy’s end, Italy’s new constitution stopped recognizing titles, and the Consulta Araldica ceased to function. The 1948 Transitional Provisions confirmed that noble titles would not be legally recognized. The Consulta Araldica was formally suppressed in 2010. Papal nobility, created by the Pope, was not affected by these laws. Today, the Libro d'Oro della Nobiltà Italiana is still kept as an official manuscript in 41 volumes, but it has never been published.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 01:56 (CET).