ALBANI, FAMILY. - Two Albanian refugees, Giorgio and Filippo di Michele de' Lazi, formerly combatants under the orders of Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg, disdaining to remain in their homeland fallen under Turkish rule, took refuge in Urbino, where Federico and Guidobaldo di Montefeltro employed them in affairs of war and peace. They took the surname Albanesi, which ALTOBELLO, son of Giorgio, changed to A. and transmitted to his descendants, together with the conspicuous wealth accumulated in the hospitable duchy. From Altobello (1445-1564) was born ANNIBALE (1530-91), and from Annibale, ORAZIO (1576-1653), who brought great luster to the family because, sent as plenipotentiary by the last duke of Urbino to negotiate with Urban VIII the devolution of the State to the Holy See, he merited being elected senator of Rome. Of his sons ANNIBALE and CARLO, the first embraced the ecclesiastical career and became prefect of the Vatican Library; the second married a Mosca of Pesaro, a rich but not noble family, and attended in Urbino to the administration of the family properties. The family fortune was instead assured by Carlo I's son, GIAN FRANCESCO, who, leaving to his brother ORAZIO the task of perpetuating the line, became a priest, and, having settled in Rome, entered the government of the Papal State and rose to the pinnacle of the papacy under the name Clement XI (v.).
According to the customs of the time, as a consequence of this election, the A. family received Roman patrician status, princely nobility and curial offices, but not greater wealth, because Clement XI, faithful to the constitution of Innocent XII against nepotism, denied his brother and nephews money and conspicuous dignities; only ANNIBALE, son of his brother Orazio, was created cardinal; ALESSANDRO, brother of Annibale, received the cardinalate instead from Innocent XIII. Of the other two cardinals of the A. house, GIAN FRANCESCO was the son of Carlo and GIUSEPPE the son of Orazio, brother of Card. Gian Francesco: both left a good memory of themselves. (For the individual cardinals see below).
The A. family died out in 1852 with FILIPPO, last son of ORAZIO III. Primogeniture and fideicommissa passed, not without disputes, to the Castelbarco-Simonetti-Visconti, through Antonia Litta Arese, daughter of Elena, sister of Orazio III, and wife precisely of a Castelbarco. The name nevertheless endures, both through the merit of the good pontificate of Clement XI and through the singular richness of the artistic collections, which adorned the villa A. on the via Salaria and the palace, formerly Mattei, at the Quattro Fontane. Unfortunately these collections were dispersed, but for the most part they ended up in the Vatican and Capitoline museums. A worse fate befell the library, which, ceded to Prussia shortly after a century, was lost at sea off Civitavecchia. The library of Urbino too, the creation of Clement XI, has for some years now emigrated from its original seat. - See Pl. XLVII.
