House of Auditore

"We are the Auditore da Firenze. We are Assassins."

- Giovanni Auditore da Firenze

The House of Auditore was a noble family of Florence. Its prominent period was very short (approximately 100 to 200 years).

History
During the late 13th century, the Auditore family lived in Venice (though not under that name). Some time before 1296, Domenico Auditore was inducted into the Assassins, under the tutelage of Dante Alighieri. After Dante's death, Domenico was tasked to hide an important text in Spain, but was ambushed at sea by Templar pirates. With only his son remaining, he used the bank account given by Marco Polo to impersonate a nobleman in Florence, taking vocal lessons and studying architecture and classics, adopting the Auditore name. He then constructed a villa in the town of Monteriggioni, hunted the Templars and trained his son to fight them and collect the Codex pages. Before his death, he left the origins of the family engraved on stone plates in the family crypt hidden under Monteriggioni.

Over the years, the family gained in prominence even becoming a close ally of the Medici dynasty, the rulers of Florence. However in 1476, approximately 170 years after its creation, the Auditore family collapsed, victims of a conspiracy led by Rodrigo Borgia, Grand Master of the Templar Order, Uberto Alberti, a close friend of Giovanni Auditore before he betrayed the Auditore family to the Templars and the Pazzi family, enemies of the Auditore and secretly Templars. They were considered as traitors of the Republic and excluded from the nobility. Most of the male members of the family in Florence were executed, leaving only Claudia, Maria and Ezio. After the execution, they took refuge in Monteriggioni under the protection of Mario Auditore, a condottiero with an army of mercenaries at his disposal to fight against the Templars in the region. He is as well the brother of Giovanni, patriarch of the family in Florence who was executed along with his two sons. His only remaining son, Ezio, took on his work and sought vengeance against those responsible for the death of his father and brothers. He contributed in restoring the villa and the city of Monteriggioni as well.

It is unknown how many persons wore the name of Auditore after the events of Assassin's Creed II, but most of the information about the Auditore family has been erased from History after the conspiracy and the name was most likely lost over the centuries. The lineage however kept extending with two known descendants of Ezio Auditore in the 21st century; Desmond Miles and "Subject 16".

Members

 * Domenico Auditore (founder; ? - ?)
 * Ilario Auditore (? - ?)
 * Mario Auditore (1434 - 1500)
 * Giovanni Auditore (1436 - 1476)
 * Maria Auditore (1432 - ?)
 * Federico Auditore (1456 - 1476)
 * Ezio Auditore (1459 - ?)
 * Claudia Auditore (1461 - ?)
 * Petruccio Auditore (1463 - 1476)

Trivia

 * Most likely unknown by its members, the Auditore family is descended directly from Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, one of the greatest assassins of the Assassin Order.
 * If the Palazzo Auditore is visited during the Bonfire of the Vanities, Ezio can see his family face to face as a loving memory.
 * After exploring the Auditore Family Crypt, it is discovered that the Auditore are not truly nobles, but only pose as nobles to cover the fact that they are Assassins.
 * As soon as Ezio is born, his father tells him that he is an Auditore, and he is a fighter, hinting the family's history of being Assassins.
 * Auditore is an Italian word meaning "auditor". An auditor is a person who maintains financial accounts of a business. This is a possible reference to Giovanni and Claudia's work.

Familia Auditore