As a nation state, Italy has emerged only in 1871. Until then the country was politically divided into a large number of independant cities, provinces and islands. The currently available evidences point out to a dominant Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultural influence on today's Italians.
Very few works have been published in English on the topics of Italian heraldry, nobility and onomatology as these relate to genealogy. Yet all three fields depend upon genealogical research. This concise presentation is not intended as a historical treatise, but rather as a simple guide for those i...