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.
Palazzo Orsini in Fara Sabina, northern Lazio, central Italy. The Orsini were amongst the main feudatories in Italy from the Middle Ages onwards, holding a great numbers of fiefs and lordships in Lazio and in the Kingdom of Naples.
The Tower of Raimondello Orsini in Taranto, c. 1880.
Gerolama Orsini, Pier Luigi's wife.
The Orsini Castle in Nerola.
The nobility of Italy comprised individuals and their families of the Italian Peninsula, and the islands linked with it, recognized by the sovereigns of the Italian city-states since the Middle Ages, and by the kings of Italy after the unification of the region into a single state, the Kingdom of Italy.
Roger I de Hauteville
Portrait of the Loredan family, by Giovanni Bellini, 1507, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Leonardo Loredan, 75th Doge of Venice, ruled from 1501 until his death in 1521 and was a member of the Loredan family, one of the Republic's most prominent noble houses. His four sons are depicted wearing the typical regalia of Venetian noblemen.
The Royal Palace of Caserta, the residence of the king of the Two Sicilies. It is the largest former royal residence in the world.
Paolo Thaon di Revel