In 1896 the "Golden Book of Italian nobility", was founded, in which members were families who had obtained decrees granting, renewal or confirmation of a title of nobility by the king or royal decrees or ministerial recognition of his noble title. It was intended to avoid abuses and usurpations in the maintenance of existing titles in the pre-unification states and was responsible for keeping a "record of noble titles" in which membership was compulsory for the public use the titles. In 1889 a list of families who had obtained decrees granting or recognition of titles of nobility after the unification of Italy was drawn up, as were 14 regional lists, where families were already recorded in the official lists of states pre-unification. It was initially an official register kept in the State Central State in Rome compiled by the heraldry consultants of the Kingdom of Italy, a government body established in 1869 at the Ministry of the Interior.
First published in its current form in 1910, it includes some 2,500 families, and may not be considered exhaustive. Included are those listed in the earlier register of the Libro d’Oro della Consulta Araldica del Regno d’Italia and the later Elenchi Ufficiali Nobiliari of 1921 and of 1933. In 1921 it was approved '"Official list of noble and titled families of the Kingdom of Italy": the list included all family members already in the regional registers, but it marked with an asterisk those who had obtained title by royal or ministerial decree. In 1933 it was approved a second '"Official List of the Italian nobility", to which was attached a list of requirements to establish nobility. Those enrolled in the Italian Official lists of nobility had three years to provide documentation for inclusion in the Golden Book of 1933, so this is much shorter than the 1921 edition.
Following the Second World War and the decision by a referendum to abolish its monarchy, democratic Italy officially ended its recognition of titles and hereditary honours in its new constitution, so ceased to maintain the Consulta Araldica, an official government body regulating the nobility which had been a department of the Ministry of the Interior. All titles are now not recognized. Only those families bearing titles before 28 October 1922 were permitted to use predicates of such titles as a part of their names. These laws did not apply to the nobility of Rome, insofar as their titles had been created by the pope, when he was a sovereign head of state. After a period of uncertainty, the Italian aristocracy continued to use their titles in the same way as they had in previous centuries. This behaviour was cemented by the continued publication of Il Libro d'Oro della Nobiltà Italiana, published as much to prevent self-styled aristocrats from social climbing as to list the established nobility.
Current status
The Libro d'Oro della Nobiltà Italiana is regularly published by the Collegio Araldico of Rome. It should not be confused with a social register - wealth, status and social contacts are of no consideration on the decision as to whether a person may be included in the book, the only consideration is the blood or marital relationship to the head of a noble family. Nor is it a peerage reference such as those published in Great Britain. The currently published Libro d'Oro is not an official publication of the Italian state, which currently does not have a civic office to recognise titles of nobility or personal coats of arms. The most recent edition of Libro d'Oro della Nobiltà Italiana was published in 2014 http://www.collegioaraldicoromano.it/libro-d-oro It is structured in volumes divided into two series:
Golden Book of the Italian nobility, new series, in 30 volumes
States and cities
In addition to the Libro d'oro of Venice, such books had existed in many of the Italian states and cities before the unification of Italy. For example, the Libro d'Oro of Murano, the glass-making island in the Venetian Lagoon, was instituted in 1602, and from 1605 the heads of the Council of Ten granted the title cittadino di Murano to those heads of families born on the island or resident there for at least twenty-five years. A Libro d'Oro was also compiled on each of the Venetian Ionian Islands as a nobiliary of the members of local Community Councils. After the Ionian Islands were conquered and annexed by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797, the Libro d'Oro was ceremoniously burned. In the reformed Republic of Genoa of 1576 the Genoese Libro d'Oro, which had been closed in 1528, was reopened to admit new blood. By extension, a Libro d'Oro is a by-name for any nobiliary directory, as when Al. N. Oikonomides refers to "the recently published 'libro d'oro' of the wealthy ancient Athenians ".
