Decree of 21 January 1999.

The operative part of the decree, as it appears in the civil-status act that transcribes it, authorises the children of Aldo Guerri dall'Oro to add to their surname "GALLONE di TRICASE e di MOLITERNO". That single clause holds two things: the addition of the surname GALLONE and the cognomisation of the predicates of TRICASE and MOLITERNO, which under the Fourteenth transitional provision count as part of the name. The succession to the titles of Prince of Tricase and Prince of Moliterno is not the object of any express ruling: it is the consequence set out in the chapters below, since the magistrate grants cognomisation only after establishing the existence of the title to which the predicate is attached, and the right to it.

The decree was transcribed into the civil-status registers of the Comune di Bordighera on 10 July 2000: birth acts, part II, series B, no. 17. The act was received by the registrar Marina Ramoino, before two witnesses.

Until 2026 the date of 21 January 1999 rested on a marginal annotation added to a birth act. Through this act it now rests on a public instrument, which also reproduces the decree's operative wording.

The transcription is, however, made by summary: the registrar copied the date and the operative clause, not the whole decree. Yet the act closes on a decisive formula — "I have affixed my visa and placed in the volume of annexes to this register the request for transcription and the document transcribed". A copy of the decree is therefore kept among the annexes to the register for the year 2000, at Bordighera. What the act does not record — the protocol number in particular — is there.

A first question concerns the right of Maria Bianca Gallone (1895–1982) — a "natural" daughter but "acknowledged" immediately by her father — to succeed to the titles of Prince of Tricase and Moliterno.

Maria Bianca's mother, Giuseppina Moncada, already married to Nicola Gaetani, Duke of Laurenzana, ran away to live with Pietro Giovanni Battista Gallone. A huge scandal in Naples, which explains Maria Bianca's birth in Paris and the fact that her mother's name did not appear on the birth certificate. Despite this, Maria Bianca, immediately acknowledged by her father, always bore the name and titles of her House. The situation was legitimised in 1924, after the death of Nicola Gaetani, by a formal marriage of Maria Bianca's parents.

According to nobiliary law, titles and predicates are transmitted only through "legitimate and natural" filiation. Excluded from the succession are adopted children ("legitimate but not natural") and illegitimate children ("natural but not legitimate").

Natural children, even when acknowledged, do not succeed to nobiliary titles and predicates unless they are "legitimated by subsequent marriage" or legitimated by Royal Decree. Legitimation by subsequent marriage took effect ex tunc, that is, from the day of conception. According to the R.D. of 1943, "i figli legittimati per susseguente matrimonio succedono nei titoli e predicati al pari dei figli legittimi" (children legitimated by subsequent marriage succeed to titles and predicates on a par with legitimate children).

As for the meaning of the addition of the surname "GALLONE", it must be recalled that often, in history, important noble families have become extinct in other families.

The cognomisation of the nobiliary predicates "DI TRICASE E DI MOLITERNO" requires a technical clarification. A "nobiliary predicate" is the name of an ancient fief joined to the "title of nobility". The XIV transitional provision of the Constitution of the Italian Republic, which came into force on 01.01.1948, reads: "i titoli nobiliari non sono riconosciuti; i predicati di quelli esistenti prima del 28 ottobre 1922 valgono come parte del nome" (nobiliary titles are not recognised; the predicates of those existing before 28 October 1922 are valid as part of the name).

By this immediately applicable norm, the Constitution conferred a genuine subjective right to the "cognomisation of the predicate" in favour of those to whom, prior to 28 October 1922 (March on Rome), the connected nobiliary title belonged. The Constitutional Court (judgment no. 101 of 08.07.1967) clarified that the cognomisation of nobiliary predicates may be obtained only with reference to predicates on which rest those nobiliary titles existing before 1922 and recognised (by judicial or administrative measure under the former monarchical Order) before the entry into force of the Constitution.

Finally, it should be noted that under the former order a nobiliary title was to be considered existing independently of administrative or judicial recognition, which had only a function of ascertainment.

The "predicate", whose "cognomisation" is provided for, has an evident nobiliary origin and nature, so much so that, according to the constant case law on the matter, the Magistrate cannot grant the "cognomisation" except after having duly ascertained the legal existence and entitlement of the "nobiliary title" to which the "predicate" whose addition is requested is linked.

The operative part, verbatim, declares the constitutional illegitimacy of the eight heraldic texts "nei limiti in cui ad essi si dà applicazione per l'aggiunta al nome di predicati di titoli nobiliari anteriori al 28 ottobre 1922 ma non riconosciuti prima dell'entrata in vigore della Costituzione; nonché nei limiti in cui essi sottopongono il diritto predetto e la relativa tutela giudiziaria ad una disciplina diversa da quella disposta dall'ordinamento per il diritto al nome" — that is: insofar as they are applied to the addition to the name of predicates of titles prior to 28 October 1922 but not recognised before the Constitution came into force. The full text may be consulted on Consulta OnLine.

It remains to be established whether the "Neapolitan Female Succession" is still applicable. The Kingdom of Italy, in 1896, promulgated a Decree declaring valid the nobiliary succession rules in force in the pre-unitary States, among them those relating to the "Neapolitan and Sicilian Female Successions". In 1926 a new R.D. repealed, as jus novum, the earlier laws still in force throughout the territories of the Kingdom, supplemented by another R.D. of 1943 concerning the new rules for the Consulta Araldica and for successions to titles. The "Female Succession" was therefore repealed.

With the passage to the Republic the situation changed. Judgment no. 101 of 1967 declared the constitutional illegitimacy of eight texts of the Kingdom's heraldic legislation — among them R.D. of 16 August 1926 no. 1489, which governed precisely the order of succession to titles — and brought the matter back within the ordinary regime of the right to a name.

It must be made clear, however, in fairness to the text, that the Court pronounces this illegitimacy only insofar as those texts are applied to the addition of predicates to the name. The operative part contains no express ruling on the Neapolitan Female Succession, nor on the restoration of the ancient succession rules.

The restoration of the Neapolitan Female Succession is therefore a doctrinal conclusion, not a holding of the judgment. It is the thesis argued by Marco Lupis Macedonio Palermo di Santa Margherita in the Studi e Fonti Documentarie della Società Genealogica Italiana (see the bibliography below): the legislation that had repealed them having fallen, the rules in force at the time of the original concession of the title become applicable again, and hence also the Female Successions admitted in 1896.

A final question concerns the necessity of the Royal Assent (Regio Assenso), with particular reference to the Neapolitan Female Succession of nobiliary titles. In reality the Royal Assent was neither necessary nor required in the case of the simple transmission of the title, once it had become merely honorific, emptied of its link to a feudal property. Such transmission of titles constituted a "perfect right", which required no confirmation, but rested its legitimacy on the ordinary hereditary succession from father to son (or from father to daughter, or from mother to son, or from mother to daughter in the case of the Kingdom of Naples).

According to the study by Marco Lupis Macedonio Palermo di Santa Margherita cited below, in the Kingdom of Naples:

• until the Law abolishing feudalism of 1806, "non era necessario alcun provvedimento formale (Regio Assenso, pagamento di alcuna tassa o "relevio", ecc.) per la trasmissione del solo titolo, né per linea maschile, né per linea femminile" (no formal measure — Royal Assent, payment of any tax or "relevio", etc. — was necessary for the transmission of the title alone, neither through the male line nor the female line); • after 1806, when "i titoli nobiliari furono ridotti a mere distinzioni onorifiche ed a semplici aggiunte al nome di famiglia" (nobiliary titles were reduced to mere honorific distinctions and to simple additions to the family name), personal investiture was no longer required, neither through the male line nor the female line.