House of Aleramici

The Aleramici were a medieval family of Italian nobility which ruled various northwestern counties and marches from the tenth to the fourteenth century. The founder of the family was William I of Montferrat, a Frank, who came over to Italy in 888 or 889 to aid his fellow Frank Guy III of Spoleto in a quest for the Iron Crown of Lombardy. His son Aleram was the first to carry the title "marchio" or margrave.

By the twelfth century, the Aleramici were one of the most considerable in Piedmont, related to the Capetians and the Hohenstaufen. Members of the family participated frequently in the Crusades, and became kings and queens of Jerusalem. They also married into the Byzantine imperial families of Comnenus, Angelus, and Palaeologus and, as a result of the Fourth Crusade, founded the Latin Kingdom of Thessalonica.

At the end of the XI century the family was split into two main branches: one ruled Montferrat until 1305; the other (Del Vasto) ruled the south of Piedmont and western Liguria. In the middle of XII century the Del Vasto family branched again into several lines, governing smaller marquisates, such as Saluzzo (from 1135 to 1548), Finale (ruled by the Del Carretto from 1135 to 1602), Ceva, Busca and Clavesana. The Del Carretto had many collateral lines in Piedmont, in Sicily and apparently even in France (de la Charrette). On the other hand the Lancia are a branch of tha marquesses of Busca.