Note 96 — CARLO GOZZI.

The Gozzi family were thus Cittadini Originari of Venice. These Cittadini had to prove legitimate birth in the city; three generations during which the family had exercised no mechanical arts; freedom from any criminal stain, debts to the state, or factious behaviour. Citizenship, as in the case of the Gozzi, was also granted by privilege. The Cittadini formed a class of burgher aristocracy, ranking below the patricians and taking no part in the actual government of the State, since they did not vote in the Consiglio Grande. Their names, pedigrees, and arms were enrolled in a book, of which many copies exist, and which was commonly called the Libro d'Argento, to distinguish it from the Libro d'Oro of the patricians. In a MS. of the seventeenth century, which belonged to Cicogna, now at the Museo Civico, entitled Le Due Corone della Nobiltà Veneziana, Corona Seconda, the Gozzi arms are blazoned thus: "Or, on the topmost branches of an olive-tree vert a dove ppr., and round the stem of the tree a scroll argent inscribed Signum Pacis." The family is described as wealthy; but no pedigree is given: Non vi è albero. Carlo Gozzi, in his Lettera Confutatoria, Memorie, vol. iii. p. 31, asserts that the privilege of citizenship was given to his ancestors by the Doge Cicogna (1585-95). It is neither impossible nor improbable that the Gozzi of Bergamo were derived from the same stock as the Gozze or Gozzi of Ragusa. These latter drew their pedigree from Herzegovina, and were therefore Slavs. We know that the patrician families of Polo and Sagredo came originally from Sebenico.