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Michelangelo's Family
As most Italian surnames, "Buonarroti" is not, as might be assumed, a plural of "Buonarroto", but the genitive singular of Buonarroto (this vestigial genitive is derived from Latin, for example Julius - Julii) and is equivalent to the English ...s (Harris, Hopkins and so on). It is only in the case of surnames that this case survives in modern Italian. The first we hear of the Bunarroti family is in 1197, when a Buonarrota was involved in one of the many civil wars which took place periodically in Florence. Though the Buonarroti actually belonged to the minor nobility, there is no truth in the story put forth by Michelangelo that the family descended from that of the Counts of Canossi. Among Michelangelo’s ancestors we can mention a Certain Michele Buonarrota, who in 1323 was made prisoner during a battle, dying later while still in custody. Another ancestor of his was a Dominican friar of the Convent of Santa Maria Novella, who died in 1343, while a third Buonarrota was nominated Prior of Florence in 1380. In 1395 this same Buonarrota lent Florence the sum of 4,500 Florins, to finance the war against Gian-Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan. In 1449 the fortunes of the family were down and Michelangelo’s grandfather, Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarrota was obliged to sell the family’s house in Piazza Peruzzi. On 9 October 1474 Leonardo di Buonarrota Simoni (1444-1534), Michelangelo’s father, was nominated podestà (magistrate) of the Castle of Chiusi, being transferred to Caprese on 1 January of the Following year. It was during his father's term as podestà that Michelangelo was born in Caprese. |