Libro d'Oro

The Libro d'Oro (The Golden Book), originally published between 1315 and 1797, is the formal directory of nobles in the Republic of Venice (including the Ionian Islands).

In the oligarchic Republic of Venice the series of restrictions to eligibility for membership in the Great Council that began in 1297 with the decreed Serrata del Maggior Consiglio, or closing of the Great Council, resulted in 1315 in the compiling of a directory of members of eligible families, the Libro d'Oro or "Golden Book".

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.

[6] 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.

[11] 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.

The Libro d'Oro della Nobiltà Italiana ("Golden Book of the Italian Nobility") is regularly published by the Collegio Araldico of Rome.

[14] A Libro d'Oro was also compiled on each of the Venetian Ionian Islands as a nobiliary of the members of local Community Councils (Zante 1542, Corfu 1572 and Cephalonia 1593).