Genealogical notes on the Gubbio-Baccaresca line, its Tyrolean continuation, and its connections with Greiffenberg and Weissmann von Weissenstein

The Gabrielli von Tyrol, also known in Italian as the Gabrielli del Tirolo, represent a late and regionally distinct continuation of the ancient Gabrielli of Gubbio. Their history belongs to a broader movement of Italian noble lineages beyond their original civic and feudal territories, particularly into the Habsburg world, the Comtat Venaissin, and the historical Tyrol.

The family’s matrix is Gubbio, in Umbria. The Gabrielli of Gubbio are remembered in Italian noble and heraldic tradition as one of the old families of the city, connected with ecclesiastical, military, civic and feudal history. Genealogical traditions sometimes extend the family’s memory into very ancient or even Roman claims, but the historically meaningful centre of the house is the medieval and early modern world of Gubbio, Baccaresca and the Papal territories.

In the family’s preserved genealogical tradition, the older line is connected with an Alsatian point of origin and with a subsequent establishment in San Damiano and Gubbio. This tradition, preserved through the private noble-genealogical archive associated with Alberto Enrico Gabrielli at the Palazzo dei Gabrielli in Fano, presents the ancient line as running through names such as Bino de’ Gabrielli di Gubbio around 1300, Vidalo or Vidaldo around 1340, Iannaro or Gennaro around 1370, and a later Gabrielli generation around 1390. The same genealogical sequence continues with Angelo Gabrielli, Gabriel or Gabriello Gabrielli, Ludovico Gabrielli, and finally Bartholomeus or Bartolomeo de Baccaresca de Gabrielli.

This sequence is important because it connects the older Gubbio line to the Baccaresca branch. In the family documentation, Gabriel or Gabriello Gabrielli appears as father of Ludovico Gabrielli, and Ludovico Gabrielli as father of Bartholomeus or Bartolomeo de Baccaresca de Gabrielli. Through this chain, the Baccaresca line is not an isolated collateral curiosity, but part of the broader continuity of the Gabrielli of Gubbio.

The Baccaresca branch forms one of the most significant links between the medieval civic nobility of Gubbio and the later transregional history of the family. In French noble genealogical material, the Gabrielli are described as a family known since the eleventh century. The same material recalls Forte or Forti Gabrielli, who lived in the mountains of Gubbio, died in 1040 and was later beatified, as well as Rodolfo and Pietro Gabrielli. It also records several crusaders, bishops of Gubbio, Ferrara, Piacenza and Lucca, cardinals, a gonfaloniere of the Republic of Florence, and writers in theology and law.

The same genealogical record identifies the family as counts of Baccaresca and Coraduccio. Bartholomeus or Bartolomeo de Baccaresca de Gabrielli, born in Gubbio in 1566 and deceased in Carpentras in 1633, appears as a central figure of the Baccaresca line. He belonged to the Gubbio nobility and served in the Papal and Comtat Venaissin context. The branch established in Carpentras around 1610 belongs to this same expansion. There we find figures such as Charles de Gabriellis, count of Baccaresca, captain-general of the garrison of Carpentras and later connected with the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome.

The Tyrolean line emerges from this larger background. Bartholomeus Gabrielli I, born in 1660 and deceased in 1747, is traditionally regarded as the first representative of the Gabrielli line established in the historical Tyrol. The Tyrolean branch must therefore be understood as part of the Gabrielli of Gubbio-Baccaresca continuum, transferred into the Habsburg world and rooted in the social, parish and territorial networks of the Tyrol, South Tyrol and Trentino-Tyrolean area.

The Habsburg setting is essential. The Tyrol was not merely a geographical destination; it was a political and social environment in which noble, military, ecclesiastical and administrative families interacted across linguistic and regional boundaries. The Gabrielli of Tyrol appear in this context through parish records, heraldic notices and later family documentation. Their presence is connected with Innsbruck, Mariahilf, South Tyrol and other localities of the historical Tyrolean space.

One of the clearest heraldic testimonies is Georg Martin Gabrielli, recorded in 1748 as a Wappenträger, or bearer of arms, and as Landschaftlicher Kaplan. This title indicates a cleric connected with the territorial institution of the Tyrolean Landschaft. The reference preserved by the Tiroler Landesmuseen points to the archival file L.A. Stn. 2609, an important sign that the Gabrielli name was not only present in the region, but also formally registered in a heraldic and institutional context.

The Tyrolean branch is also defined by a series of marriages and genealogical connections that joined the Gabrielli with other lineages.

The first major connection is with Weissmann von Weissenstein. Bartholomeus Gabrielli I is linked by marriage to Anna Maria Weissmann von Weissenstein, born on 29 June 1659 and baptised in the cathedral of Sankt Pölten in Lower Austria, according to the baptismal register, page 497. This connection places the Gabrielli of Tyrol within the wider Austrian and German-speaking noble world. The Weissmann or Weissmann von Weissenstein name is also associated with the German-Baltic and Livonian noble milieu, and with service under the Russian Empire. This Baltic context is relevant to the broader historical memory of the name, particularly through noble repertories such as Otto Magnus von Stackelberg’s Genealogisches Handbuch der estländischen Ritterschaft.

The second important connection is with the Mosconi family. Daniele Gabrielli, born in 1688 and deceased in 1766, married Flora Mosconi, born in 1690 and deceased in 1768, on 9 July 1715 in the Tyrolean context. This marriage strengthened the regional embedding of the family within the Tyrolean social world.

The third and most identity-defining connection is with Greiffenberg, also appearing in the documentation under related forms such as Greifenbergh, Greiffemberg, Greifenberg and Graiffenberg. This connection is not limited to a single individual. It appears as a recurring documentary layer in the family’s historical and onomastic memory.

Maria Theresia von Greiffenberg appears as the spouse of Charles de Baccaresca de Gabrielli and as mother of Bartholomeus Gabrielli, born in 1660. Later, in the nineteenth century, Maria von Greiffenbergh or Maria von Greiffenberg appears in the baptismal record of Stefano Massimiliano Gabrielli, born in 1835, as his mother. The Greiffenberg material also includes names and variants such as Maria Teresa Cattarina Greiffemberg, Maria Catterina Greiffenberg née Mochen, Maria Greiffenberg connected with the Poletti-Greifenberg branch of Brescia, Maria Greifenberg widow of Oreste Poletti, Alfredo Poletti son of Oreste and Maria Greifenberg, Gaetano Graiffenberg, and Maria Catterina Greifenbergh, born in Vermiglio, Trento, in 1827, daughter of Domenico Greifenbergh and Maria Negroloni.

This Greiffenberg layer is fundamental because it shows that the Gabrielli del Tirolo were not merely a transplanted Italian branch. They became part of a composite Alpine and Habsburg genealogy, where Italian, Tyrolean, Austrian, Germanic and Trentino elements met.

The fourth later connection is with the Carboni family. Domenico Gabrielli, born in 1874 and deceased in 1943, married Emilia Maria Carboni, born in 1879 and deceased in 1945, in Porretta Terme on 1 April 1929. Through this later phase, the family line continued into the twentieth century, preserving the memory of the Gabrielli, Greiffenberg and Weissmann strands.

The family’s heraldry reflects this layered history. The traditional arms of the Gabrielli of Gubbio are represented in an azure field with three bezants or roundels charged with crosses and a crescent. In family memory these elements are associated with the crusading tradition of the house. In the Baccaresca and French documentation, another blazon appears: paly of gold and gules, with three silver fesses over all. These heraldic forms are not merely decorative. They express the different documentary environments in which the family appears: Gubbio, Baccaresca, the Comtat Venaissin, the Papal world and the Tyrol.

The crusading memory of the Gabrielli is attached above all to Girolamo Gabrielli, remembered in noble tradition as a leader of knights during the First Crusade and as one of the lieutenants of Godfrey of Bouillon. This tradition is part of the broader symbolic language of the family, where crosses, crescent and military-religious memory form a coherent heraldic and genealogical motif.

The modern preservation of the family’s memory is equally important. The contemporary family documentation brings together the Gabrielli, Weissmann von Weissenstein and Greiffenberg lines. Their material and funerary memory is preserved in Spain, where the later family line has kept together the memory of these three houses. This Spanish preservation does not erase the Italian, Tyrolean or Austrian origins of the line; rather, it represents the present location of a composite European genealogy.

The Gabrielli von Tyrol should therefore be understood as a bridge-line. They connect Gubbio with Baccaresca, Baccaresca with the Comtat Venaissin, the Italian noble world with the Habsburg Tyrol, and the Tyrolean continuation with Greiffenberg and Weissmann von Weissenstein. Their history is not reducible to one locality or one surname. It is a layered aristocratic memory crossing Umbria, Alsace, San Damiano, Gubbio, Baccaresca, Carpentras, the Tyrol, Lower Austria, the German-Baltic world and Spain.

In this sense, the Gabrielli von Tyrol represent not only a branch of a noble Italian family, but also a case study in European genealogical continuity: a lineage that moved, married, adapted and preserved its symbols across several historical frontiers.

Notes and documentary basis

  1. Alberto Enrico Gabrielli, Palazzo dei Gabrielli, Fano, private noble-genealogical archive; genealogical documentation of the Gabrielli of Gubbio and Baccaresca; ancient family trees relating to the Alsace-San Damiano-Gubbio-Baccaresca line.

  2. Généalogie des familles nobles – « Gabrielli », noble genealogical material, France, Comtat Venaissin, pp. 1a-1b.

  3. Baptismal register of the cathedral of Sankt Pölten, Lower Austria, 1659, p. 497, for Anna Maria Weissmann von Weissenstein.

  4. Parish baptismal record of Stefano Massimiliano Gabrielli, 1835, son of Bartholomeus Gabrielli and Maria von Greiffenbergh / von Greiffenberg.

  5. Greiffenberg / Greifenbergh family documentation, including Maria Catterina Greifenbergh, born in Vermiglio, Trento, in 1827, daughter of Domenico Greifenbergh and Maria Negroloni.

  6. Tiroler Landesmuseen, heraldic register of Georg Martin Gabrielli, Wappenträger, Innsbruck, 1748, L.A. Stn. 2609.

  7. Otto Magnus von Stackelberg, Genealogisches Handbuch der estländischen Ritterschaft, Teil Estland, Band I, Görlitz, 1931.

  8. Giovan Battista di Crollalanza, Dizionario storico-blasonico delle famiglie nobili e notabili italiane estinte e fiorenti, vol. I, Pisa, 1886.

  9. Carlo Gabrielli, I Gabrielli di Gubbio, Archivio storico gentilizio del Napolitano, anno I, vol. I, fasc. I, Napoli, 1894.