Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

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The most ancient records of the Diodatis tell us that the first of their
race who settled in Lucca, CORNELIO ^ by name, came there from
Coreglia in the year 1300.' Whether he came as a nobleman, that is, as
one of the old lords of the land of Italy, to throw the weight of his influ-
ence on that side, in the great strife for power in the Italian cities, between
those who held the soil and those whose claims to consideration were
based only on the possession of wealth acquired by commerce, we are not
informed. But, within the last twenty years of the thirteenth century,
according to Sismondi,'' that strife for power had ended with the absolute
exclusion of the nobility from all control in the republics of Italy. More-
over, we find the representative of the fourth generation of Diodatis in
Lucca, named Michele,^ to have been an Ancient, or one of the Supreme
' A pedigree of all the ramifications of the family, of which we are informed, beginning with
Cornelio, is appended to tlris monograph. In one of the family-documents, entitled "Notes Gen6al-
ogiques tirees des Archives de M. Rilliet Necker, Commissaire General," three other names are found
before that of Arrigo in our pedigree, namely: Ugolino, d. at Lucca 1150; Cristoforo, d. at L. 1194 ;
Uberto, d. at L. 1234 ; and Jacopo—who is called " Dominus de Barga"—d. at L. 1304 ; while the name
of Cornelio is omitted, apparentl}' by accident. But we learn, by a letter from the late Mr. Theodore
Diodati of Geneva, that his grandfather always considered the Diodatis of Barga as forming a separate
branch ; and the dates above given seem not likely to belong to successive generations ;
so
that we have
here, probably, an ill-considered attempt to trace the origin of the family from a still higher antiquity.
If Scliotel (Jean Diodati, ut supra, pp. 12-13) is right in his understanding of Baronius, one of the name
held the papal chair from 614 to 617, as the successor of Boniface iv. For completeness, we may add
that Schotel (p. 12) refers to " L'fitat de la Provence, dans sa noblesse. Paris, 1693, iii. 28 ;" Cesar Nos-
tradamus, " Histoire de Provence. Lion, 1614, p. 697 ;" and Mich. Baudier, "Hist, du Marechal de
Thoiras. Paris, 1644," as showing that some have believed the Diodatis to be not originall}' Italian, but
of French extraction. But the last of these references—which is the only one we have been able to
follow up—has given us nothing pertinent to the subject ; nor do Schotel's quotations, on pp. 97-98,
from the first two of the works referred to, seem to support his statement. Coreglia and Barga are both
small castle-towns, with dependent territories, on the torrent-worn declivity of the Appenines, four
miles (Italian) apart, and about twenty miles north of Lucca— Dizion. Geogr. Fisico Storico . . .
della Toscana. .
. . Compilato
da Emanuele Repetti. . . . Firenze, 1833, i. 273, ff., 796 ff.
All the names, dates and other particulars of our Pedigree of Diodati have the authority of family-
records. We have aimed at the utmost precision possible,
* Histoire des Rfepubliques Italiennes du Moyen Age. Par J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi. . .
Paris, 1826, iv. 164.
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