titles through marriages and purchases. From the 17th century onwards, the title most commonly used by the heads of the family was Prince of Montemiletto. The family went extinct with the death of its last member, Carlo III di Tocco Cantelmo Stuart, in 1884. History Origins The Tocchi originated in Benevento in the Kingdom of Sicily. Some historical genealogies from the Renaissance derived their surname from the Tauci, a Gothic tribe attested in the time of the Ostrogothic king Totila (541–552). This connection was made through observing the similarity of the names Tocci (the Latin form of Tocchi), Tauci and Totila. Some early modern genealogies went as far as claim descent from one of Totila's predecessors, the greatest of the Ostrogothic kings, Theodoric the Great (475/493–526). In the early modern age, Tocco genealogies typically stressed the family's connection with Greek royalty rather than Germanic warlords. The family's legitimate relations to the Palaiologos and Komnenos dynasties of the Byzantine Empire, formed while the family ruled in Epirus in the 15th century, were emphasized and some ancient connections, such as supposed descent from Pyrrhus, ancient king of Epirus (306–302 BC, 297–272 BC), were invented. The connections to ancient Greek royalty were likely forged in the 17th century to further the claims to authority by the family's Greek branch, whereas the connections to Germanic kings might have been forged either during the family's early history (when Italy was under the control of the German Hohenstaufen dynasty) or during the service of many members of the family to the Habsburg emperors in the 16th century. Both connections may also simply have been made, as many genealogical connections to Antiquity were in the Renaissance, to link the noble family to the heroes of the ancient world. The earliest known historical member of the Tocco family is Ugolino Tocco, who served as the Grand Seneschal of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor (1191–1197). Ugolino is typically considered to be the family's founder. Instead of descending from heroic figures of bygone times, the Tocchi likely rose to prominence by being rewarded with lands and nobility on account of their service and loyalty in the 11th or 12th century. Their supposed ancestral seat, the Castellum di Tocco, in ruins in the present day, was located on the slopes of Monte Taburno in the Taburno Camposauro massif in southern Italy. The family grew in power and influence throughout the 12th