TITLES OF DIGNITY. — These are verbal designations capable of completing a person’s identity, serving both an identifying and an honorific function. The prefixing or addition of a title to a name helps to distinguish the individual while simultaneously eliciting respect from others.
Titles are of various kinds (academic and professional, chivalric, etc.); their legal significance increases when they originate from public authorities, that is, when they emanate from public entities. The right to a title is not an innate right; it presupposes an act of conferment. Moreover, to preserve the honorific distinction inherent in a title, one must remain worthy of II. Consequently, a title may be forfeited for reasons provided by law, and thus it cannot be spoken of as an essential right or a personality right. Whereas a person’s surname, which indicates family membership, may extend to other individuals who become part of the same family, a title—except for a noble title—is granted *intuitu personae* and therefore cannot be transmitted to family members.
With regard to noble titles, the Italian Constitution, in its Transitory and Final Provisions (XIV), denied them recognition, adding that “the predicates of those existing before 28 Oct. 1922 shall be valid as part of the name.” The current regulation of noble titles represents the final phase of a historical evolution in which these titles, once expressions of feudal lordship, were reduced to mere honorific distinctions. They expressed and perpetuated the prestige of a noble house, recalling its ancient glories; hence, they had a familial character. Indeed, they did not expire with the death of the person to whom they were granted but were transmitted, according to certain legal rules, to other members of the family. The preservation of such honorific distinctions, which tended to reinforce privileges of birth, was deemed incompatible with the requirements of a true democracy. Thus, whereas the Albertine Statute (art. 79) proclaimed the conservation of noble titles, the new Constitution did not include a corresponding provision; on the contrary, it explicitly refused to recognize them. Having lost their legal force, noble titles may retain only a certain social value, sustained by enduring custom.
The “predicates” were those attributes added to noble titles to specify or complete them. At present, by virtue of the cited constitutional provision, they are valid as part of the name, provided they are predicates of noble titles existing before 28 Oct. 1922. The legal rules governing surnames shall apply to predicates that have become part of the name.
As regards noble titles conferred by the Supreme Pontiff, authoritative scholars maintain that recognition of such titles is still possible today through a decree of the President of the Republic, in accordance with art. 42 of the Concordat between the Holy See and Italy.
The use of civil titles in the inscriptions and coats of arms of bishops was abolished by a consistorial decree of 12 May 1951 (ASS, 48 [1951], p. 480).