The Frangipani or Frangipane ("Breadbreakers", from Latin frangere panem)[1] is a princely family with roots in Ancient Rome. The family was powerful as a Roman patrician clan in the Middle Ages.[2] The family was typically Guelff in sympathy and thus often bravely supported the papacy. During the twelfth century, the Frangipani were the chief adversaries of the Pierleoni family in the baronial struggles in Rome.
The Frangipani first appear in a document of 1014. Their name is said to come from the Eucharist liturgy of the Mass when Host is consecrated as Christ broke the bread. Another legend claims that one of the early Frangipani ancestors distributed bread to the poor in Rome during a great famine. For this, the arms of the family was gules, two lions rampant opposed holding a loaf of bread in their paws. The first great member of their family known to us was one Leo.
In the early thirteenth century the Colosseum was fortified by the Frangipani and the Annibaldi who used it as a fortress. One of the branches of the family gave rise to the Croatian family of the Frankopan, of which several became Bans or Vice Roys. Another branch lived in Sicilia where Eraclea Frangipane married Luca Polara. Mario Frangipani (1506–1569) served as a conservatore of Rome several times, as well as a chancellor. Fabio Mirto Frangipani was papal nuncio in France (1568–72 and 1586–87), and Ottavio Mirto Frangipani was nuncio in Flanders (1596–1606). The Frangipani Chapel, frescoed by Taddeo Zuccari, is in the church of San Marcello al Corso. The family remained important and influential during several centuries and survives in the Frankopan family in England and France as the Princes Frankopan dei Frangipani, Counts Doimi de Lupis.