Crescentii Family

Crescentii Family, a Roman family that played an important part in the history of Rome and the papacy from the middle of the 10th to the beginning of the 11th century. Its extensive possessions were situated mainly in the Sabina.

The Crescentii a Caballo Marmoreo and the Crescentii de Theodora may both have been descended from one Crescentius recorded in 901. Crescentius (Crescenzio) I de Theodora (d. 984?) led a revolt in 974 against Pope Benedict VI, who was imprisoned in the Castel Sant’Angelo and then assassinated. Crescentius’ choice as successor, the antipope Boniface VII, was immediately expelled by the new “imperial” pope, Benedict VII, under whose pontificate (974–983) the Crescentii seem to have suffered a political setback.

After the Holy Roman emperor Otto II’s death, their fortunes revived, and John (Giovanni) I, probably Crescentius’ son, assumed the title of patricius of Rome and appears to have controlled the election of the new pope, John XV, in 985. In 996 Crescentius, probably John’s brother, led a rising against Pope Gregory V, but the pope’s cousin the emperor Otto III reinstated him in 998. After being besieged by Otto in the Castel Sant’Angelo, Crescentius was executed on April 29, 998. His son John II was the last of the family to wield political power in Rome: after Otto’s death (1002), he became patricius and henceforth practically governed the city; he died in 1012.

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After that, the Stefaniani branch, descended from Stefania, sister of Crescentius I de Theodora, declined; the Ottaviani, descended from John II’s brother-in-law Octavianus, retained the rectorate of the Sabina until the beginning of the 12th century.