Capitaneo was a hereditary title of milites particular to medieval Lombardy, a captain of knights and autonomous vassal of the Archbishop of Milan, who from the 11th century largely governed the city and was often chosen among the capitanei.

[1] It is likely that between the 12th and 13th centuries, in the years of the Lombard League, the Arese moved within city walls, along with other surrounding capitanei building political legitimacy in the Milanese free commune through ecclesiastical benefice of the Ambrosian church, while defending it from the Holy Roman Emperor.

[3] During the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the Arese were notable as "nobiltà di toga" ("Nobles of the Robe"), aristocracy whose rank derived from civic stewardship of the commune, holding key judicial or administrative posts of the city-state during the signoria of the Visconti, Dukes of Milan, and the Ambrosian Republic.

[7][8] At the dawn of the Renaissance, during the violent reign of young Gian Maria Visconti, Cristoforo Arese, son of Ambrogio, continued as ambassador to the French court of Charles VI from 1407.

His vast political influence and artistic patronage while leading the Milanese domains under Charles II and Philip V and as president of the Council of Italy, marks the height of the Arese's jurisdiction.

[16][17][18] In the same period, Paolo Cesare Arese (1574–1644), philosopher, theologian, and Bishop of Tortona, authored Della tribolatione e suoi rimedi (1624) and Imprese Sacre (1621) in which he supports the Ptolemaic System.

[26][27] Francesco Teodoro Arese Lucini (1778–1835) was held in the Špilberk Castle and sentenced to death (later commuted) by Francis I, Emperor of Austria for his former alliance with Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, and for conspiring to liberate Lombardy and unite it with Piedmont.