Erba-Odescalchi

The Odescalchi are a noble Italian family, who arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries to considerable wealth and some political significance.

The family is detectable in Como from the mid-14th century. As the upper middle class of their time associated family especially since the 15th century they became involved in the trade, in the textile sector. In the 16th century falls the foundation of a family branch in Rome, also appear in this period, the Odelscalchi on in Milanese offices at court, for which a proof of nobility was required. The extended family clan secured its economic base and later increasingly by banking and real estate acquisition, put him as the early 17th century to one of the wealthiest families in Italy.

To preserve the wealth ( or to its cohesion) more and more male family members had to follow the career of a cleric. From a rather less well-off side line was derived Benedetto Odescalchi (1611-1689), who from 1676 when Pope Innocent XI. Bishop of Rome and the papacy is characterized by a rigorous austerity and curbing the rampant nepotism in his time. Innocent XI. is regarded today as the most important pope of the 17th century.

Benedetto's nephew, Livio Odescalchi (~ 1652-1713 ), the uncle refused the cardinal's hat, amassed an immensely large fortune, and secured the family a place in the Roman aristocracy, which it is still attributed to: The combination of his sister Lucrezia with Alessandro Erba showed the family Erba - Odescalchi, the title of Prince Odescalchi, Duke of Syrmium, Prince of Bassano and the Spanish grandees, among other leads today. Its members include the Palazzo Odescalchi in Rome, the Castello Odescalchi in Bracciano and the Castello Odescalchi in Palo at Ladispoli. After his participation in the defense of the Second Siege of Vienna was encumbered with Hungarian goods Livio Odeschalchi of Leopold I, also remains in family ownership. In Vienna, an early classicist palace Odescalchi place in the 9th district, Berg Gasse 3 (see Dehio ). It was probably built in 1825 by Ignaz Goll for the Heir Innocent Prince Odescalchi.

Other important members of the family are

• Carlo Odescalchi (1786-1841), Jesuit, Cardinal and Archbishop of Ferrara
• Baldassare Ladislao Odescalchi (1844-1909), Italian politician and Member of Parliament, founder of the resort Ladispoli near Rome