Italy
In the Republic of Venice, also called "the Serene Republic", the Doge was known as Serenissimus ("Most Serene") as was the Duke of Mantua.
Children of the Savoy kings and crown princes of Italy were entitled to the treatment of Royal Highness, but more remote descendants in the male-line were Serene Highnesses by right (although often the style of Royal Highness was granted to them ad personam, e.g. the Dukes of Aosta, Dukes of Genoa.
The mediatised House of Thurn and Taxis, entitled to the Serene Highness treatment in the German Empire, had a non-dynastic cadet branch, the Dukes di Castel Duino, which obtained naturalisation in Italy in the 20th century. When incorporated into the Italian nobility, their use of the Serene Highness style was authorised by the Crown.
Read more about this topic: Serene Highness
Famous quotes containing the word italy:
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!”
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