History of Illustrious Insignia, or the Special Part of the Heraldic Work

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Original title: Historia insignium illustrium, seu Operis heraldici pars specialis A learned Latin armorial and genealogical compendium forming the 'special part' of a two-volume heraldic enterprise whose companion volume, Insignium theoria seu Operis heraldici pars generalis, supplied the general theory. The title page presents it as an account of the arms of kings, dukes, princes, counts, and barons of cultivated Europe, with explanations of individual devices, material on family honours, titles, and rights, engraved tables, and indexes. It combines engraved plates of shields and helmets, numbered stemmatic tables of descent, discursive historical exposition (Exegesis historica) keyed to those tables, and an alphabetical index of families and dignities using sigla for princely, ducal, marquisal, and comital ranks. Its detailed treatment concentrates on Italian houses — the Medici, the Guidi counts palatine in Tuscany, the Piccolomini, the Salviati, the Strozzi, and the several Orsini branches — testing pedigrees and armorial origin-legends against charters, imperial diplomas, public registers, epitaphs, inscriptions, wills, and contracts, naming earlier authorities in order to correct them, disclosing how materials reached the author (including a Florentine informant whose name is withheld and Antonio Magliabechi as intermediary), and declaring where filiation, legitimacy, or etymology remains undecided. Appended material includes French correspondence on the Milan-Visconti arms and their allies. Printed at Frankfurt am Main at the expense of Johann David Zunner by Johann Theodoric Friedgen, and dedicated to a Georg styled duke of Saxony, Jülich, Cleves, and Berg; a second edition appeared at Frankfurt in 1717. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

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