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114
RAMBLES IN GERMANY
from the invaders of their country, who carried their insolence so far as to demand proof of noble origin from those who, for centuries, had illustrated the pages of history with their names.[1]
The nobility of Lombardy were also called upon to ask for the confirmation of the titles which they already possessed, by producing the documents that proved them. Very few were able to comply, as the Jacobins had destroyed their papers when they seized on all public and private archives, and burned them. Thus many of the most ancient and illustrious families are deprived of the titles which, for centuries, they enjoyed. These regulations concern that portion of Lombardy lately incorporated
- ↑ All the aristocracy—or as they call it, the famiglie tribunizie of Venice, consider themselves descended from old Roman families of the Equestrian order, and the names of several seem to attest the validity of this pretension. Padua sent a colony to the island of Rivo Alto, or Rialto, in 421; and the command for the building of the new city was entrusted to Alberto Faliero, Tommaso Candiano, and Cenone Daulo, or Dandolo. Hence it appears probable that the families of Faliero, Candiano, and Dandolo are descended from the Roman patricians who were present at the first building of the city of Rialto. In the ninth century the seat of Venetian government was transferred from the island of Rialto to Eraclea, and the independence of Venice was established. Now, before and after that epoch it may be said Venice was the only city in Europe, which from its foundation for fourteen centuries never submitted to a foreign yoke; and it is said that the old Venetian families have preserved in their lineaments the primitive character of the race whence they sprung. Dr. Edwards having examined carefully the portraits of the series of doges, and compared them with the countenances of their actual descendants, comes to this conclusion.
