Grimaldo Canella (c. 1110 – c. 1184) was the youngest son of Otto Canella and Consul of Genoa in 1162, 1170, and 1184. Grimaldo is considered the progenitor and eponym of the House of Grimaldi.
Grimaldo Canella (c. 1110 – c. 1184) was the youngest son of Otto Canella and Consul of Genoa in 1162, 1170, and 1184. Grimaldo is considered the progenitor and eponym of the House of Grimaldi.
Otto Canella (born in the middle of the 11th century, died in 1143) was Consul of the Republic of Genoa in 1133, and an ancestor of the House of Grimaldi, the family that currently rules Monaco. According to the 19th-century historian Gustave Saige, Canella's eldest son, Bellamuto, was also a Consul of Genoa, even nine years before Canella himself achieved the position. The Princely Family of Monaco take their name, Grimaldi, from his youngest son Grimaldo. Grimaldo became a Consul of Genoa in 1162.
Anne Edwards wrote: "They were an ambitious tribe, greedy for power within Genoa, always with an eye toward their own enrichment. The family, who were Ghibellines in the long struggle between the popes (Guelfs) and the emperors (Ghibellines), were pitted against the Doria and Spinola families on the Guelf side."
The House of Grimaldi is the reigning house of the Principality of Monaco. The house was founded in 1160 by Grimaldo Canella in Genoa and became the ruling house of Monaco when Francesco Grimaldi captured Monaco in 1297.
Every Prince of Monaco has been a member of the House of Grimaldi. Since the 18th century, the princes have been agnatic descendants of other families that have inherited through the female line and adopted the Grimaldi name. In 1715, Jacques Goyon de Matignon married Louise Hippolyte, Princess of Monaco, the last Grimaldi agnatic heir. He and his male line descendants, adopting the Grimaldi name, ruled as princes of Monaco from 1731 to 1949. During much of the Ancien Régime, the family resided in the French court, where from 1642 to 1715, they used the title of Duke of Valentinois.
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