Grimaldi family

The person from whom the family originated was Grimaldo Canella (c. 1110-1184), who served as consul of Genoa three times. His son adopted the surname 'Grimaldi', and the lineage that would later lead to the royal family of Monaco were descendants of his eldest son, Oberto. The Grimaldi family grew into an influential noble family in the Republic of Genoa, producing 11 doges, and established itself as a prestigious family representing Genoa along with the Spinola family.

If the Savoy family, which unified Italy , came from Italianized France , the Grimaldi family, on the other hand, came from Frenchized Italy. Originally, the Divisione di Nizza of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Piedmont surrounding Monaco was ceded to the French Second Empire through the Treaty of Turin concluded in 1860 during the unification of Italy, changing from a protectorate of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Piedmont to a protectorate of France. However, Monaco was gradually Frenchized because it was protected by the Kingdom of France even when it was surrounded by the Duchy of Savoy, the predecessor of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, and it can be seen that the cession of Nizza to France put a wedge in the Frenchization.

From other European royal families, in a good way, they are treated as celebrities , but in a bad way, they are treated as being closer to a family that falls below the level of a monarch. After the German November Revolution, all kingdoms and principalities were destroyed, and restoration became virtually impossible in the 21st century.[2] Even Germany's old royal and duchy families never consider the Grimaldi family as candidates for marriage talks. Germany's old royal families still recognize equal marriages only with those from the same royal family or from the Standeschae , due to the deprivation of succession rights due to intermarriage. However, the fact that the Duke of Monaco does not marry even though he is the existing monarch of a country means that he does not recognize the Grimaldi family as an equal monarch. Even so, Protestant royal families with different religions have never intermarried with German royal families of the same Catholic affiliation, including the Wittelsbach family . However, he had intermarried with the Urach family, which had been lowered by a lower rank in the Württemberg royal family , and France, which did not want its enemy, the German Wilhelm von Urach , to become the successor to Louis II, Duke of Monaco , intervened and selected Charlotte Grimaldi, Louis II's illegitimate daughter , as the successor.

The reason the Grimaldi family is not treated properly is because the incorporation of traditional European royal families and public houses was relatively late. Sweden 's Bernadotte dynasty was 500 years later than the Grimaldi family in its incorporation into the traditional European royal family, and its first monarch was a commoner, but as it was a strictly ruling family of a sovereign nation, it received customary recognition from European royal families. If you look for similar cases, there is also the case of the Bonaparte family, which started out as a low- ranking noble in the remote countryside of Corsica , but the family's most successful children rose to the position of Emperor of France . Naturally, this family was treated as a usurper in the beginning, and had to show actions such as intermarrying with the Habsburg family to achieve this. Thanks to this, he was recognized to a certain extent at the time of Napoleon II, but it was closer to being recognized as a bloodline of the maternal Habsburg family, and this recognition did not disappear even after time passed, so even Napoleon III, Napoleon I's nephew , was not fully recognized. At least the Bonaparte family is treated better than the Grimaldi family, thanks to the great glory of being a family that once occupied all of Europe.

Unlike other European royal families and nobles who have been intertwined through marriage for a long time, the Grimaldi family has a ruling history of over 700 years, but the only concubine from the ruling family was Jean II ( French : Jean II de Monaco, Italian : Giovanni II di Monaco, 1468-1505).[3] There was only one wife , Antonia di Savoia (Antonia di Savoia?~1500), the daughter of Philip II , Duke of Savoia , and Antonia was not an official princess as she was Philip II's illegitimate daughter . Although Marie of Lorraine, wife of Antoine I, was a member of the Lorraine family, her great-great-grandfather, René II d'Elbeuf (1536-1566), was the youngest of six sons and four daughters of Claude, Duke of Guise (1496-1550), the founder of the Guise family. His grandfather, Henri de Lorraine, Count of Harcourt (Henri de Lorraine 1601-1666), was the second son and was too distant from the direct lineage ( much farther from Louise of Lorraine, queen of Henry III ), so he could not be considered a ruling family.

Because of this background, European royal families regarded the Grimaldi family as high-ranking nobles rather than royalty. Even so, most of them quickly broke up, tarnishing the family's dignity. However, if we go back, we have blood ties to European royal families. Currently, the closest royal relatives are the Belgian royal family and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , and she is the maternal granddaughter of Louis II 's mother, Stephanie de Beauharnais .