Guadagni Family History

The Family's Origin and History

Like many other Italian and European cities, Florence grew with the incoming of people from the neighboring towns and villages, who were looking for better business opportunities or a more confortable and secure life. These newcomers became rich through hard work and business activities, which the old city families despised. After a long struggle they overtook the gentry's charges in the administration. The famous poet Dante Alighieri, an aristocrat himself, would look with contempt at these country people from the villages of "Campi, Certaldo and Figline", who would meddle with state politics. The Guadagni came from the country too. Some historians say they originated from Fiesole and came to Florence when the latter conquered the former at the beginning of the twelfth century. However the oldest informations on the family state that they lived in the parish of San Martino a Lubaco, a church which was part of the diocesis of Fiesole. The church was located in a place called Croce alIa Spina (Cross near the thorns) and from this name came the Guadagni crest: a cross full of thorns. Some people say the Guadagni were the lords of the towns of San Martino and Pagnolle but there are no proofs to confirm it. Instead it seems that that area had belonged to the bishop of Fiesole since the eleventh century. The bishop Iacopo of Baviera gave the revenues of the parish of Alpiniano, which included those two towns, to his priests in the year 1028. We can also add that the first informations we have on the Guadagnis tell us that they belonged to the order of the common people, as opposed to the gentry. Panza of Migliore was a notary and Guadagno of Guittone was prior of the merchants and the crafts. In the first volume of his "Genealogical history of the Tuscan and Umbrian noble families" Gamurrini talks about the Guadagni family and starts from way back. He has the Guadagni family tree start in the tenth century and the first ancestors have Longobardi names. The Longobardi were German barbarians who invaded Northern Italy in the seventh century and established a kingdom there. I cannot fully agree with Gamurrini and I prefer to start the family tree where we have irrefutable documents to prove it. I reject the most ancient generations he talks about because they are not proved. I also reject another branch of the family he mentions, because, without any logic, he has two centuries go by between the grandfather and the grandchildren. Two other writers, Scipione Ammirato and Francesco dei Rondinelli wrote about the Guadagni family but they never published their works and were not able to find the connection between the two branches of the family that we find in Florence at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. Gamurrini was able to do so though, and for the first time I agree with him, even if not completely.

The Guadagni Memoirs

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