It has been historically proved that the Bonapartes figured among the seigniors of the Italian cities during the Middle Ages. The Bonapartes were inscribed in the Golden Book of Bologna, among the Patricians of Florence, and in the book of the nobility of Treviso. When Napoleon became son-in-law of Austria, the Emperor Francis ordered active researches to be made as to the position occupied by the Bonaparte family in Italy during the Middle Ages; and sent his son-in-law some documents purporting to prove that the Bonapartes had been for a long period the lords of Treviso. Napoleon expressed himself as obliged, but replied that he found himself sufficiently honoured in being the Rudolph of Hapsburg of his race. On another occasion he declined the ancient patents of nobility which were being palmed on him, with the words: "I date my nobility from Millesimo and Montenotte." It is quite uncertain when the Bonapartes came to Corsica. Muratori quotes a document of the year 947, in which three Corsican seigniors—Otho, Domenico, and Guido—gift their estate of Venaco in Corsica to Silverio, Abbot of the cloister of Monte Cristo; a Messer Bonaparte signing the instrument in Mariana, along with other witnesses. The family, or rather a branch of it, would therefore seem to have come to Corsica at an early period. Others, perhaps, followed in later centuries, for the Tuscan Bonapartes were partly Guelphs and partly Ghibellines, and were alternately expatriated with the one or the other faction. It is known that some of them removed to Sarzana, in the district of Lunigiana, where they entered into the service of the powerful Malaspinas, with whom, as I am disposed to believe, they came over to Corsica. Another branch remained in Tuscany, establishing itself there permanently—first in Florence, and afterwards in the little town of San Miniato al Tedesco, which lies upon the road to Pisa. The family had its tomb in the Church of San Spirito at Florence; and I saw there, in the piazza of the convent, a stone with the inscription, in antique lettering— S. di Benedeto Di Piero di Giovanni Buonaparte. E di sua Descendenti. The coat of arms above the inscription bears two stars, one in its upper and one in its lower division, significantly enough—for the star has twice ascended over the house of Bonaparte. Members of his family were still living in San Miniato in the time of Napoleon. After his expedition from Leghorn, he found in the little town the last of that branch of the Bonapartes, in the person of an old canon, Filippo Bonaparte, who made the young hero his heir, and died in the year 1799. As regards the Bonapartes of Ajaccio, they can be traced with certainty as far back as Messire Francesco Bonaparte, who died in the year 1567. Without doubt, the Corsican branch of the family came over from Sarzana. The following little table gives Napoleon's ancestry so far as it is known with certainty:—