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 the Italian city of Florence. Its prominence in history was relatively short, lasting approximately one to two hundred years.

History
During the late 13th century, the family that would become known as the Auditore lived in the outskirts of Venice. Either around or after 1296, Domenico Auditore was inducted into the Assassin Order, under the tutelage of Dante Alighieri.

After Dante's death, Domenico was tasked with the duty of hiding Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad's Codex 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. There, he took vocal lessons, studied architecture and the classics and adopted the Auditore name. The family continued to pose as a noble house to conceal their true Assassin identities.

He then constructed a villa in the town of Monteriggioni, hunted the Templars, and trained his son in how 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 beneath Monteriggioni.

Florence
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.

Monteriggioni
Most of the male members of the family in Florence were executed, leaving only Claudia, Maria and Ezio Auditore remaining. After the execution, they took refuge in Monteriggioni under the protection of their uncle and ruler of Monteriggioni, Mario Auditore, a condottiero with an army of mercenaries at his disposal to fight against the Templars in the region.

As Giovanni's 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 as adopting the rule of Monteriggioni from his uncle.

Later history
It is unknown how many individuals bore the name of Auditore after the events of the Renaissance period, as most of the information about the Auditore family was erased from history by the Templar conspiracy, and the name itself was most likely lost over the centuries. The Auditore lineage extended to two known descendants of Ezio Auditore in the 21st century; Desmond Miles and Clay Kaczmarek.

Members

 * Domenico Auditore
 * Ilario Auditore
 * Mario Auditore
 * Giovanni Auditore da Firenze
 * Maria Auditore da Firenze
 * Federico Auditore da Firenze
 * Ezio Auditore da Firenze
 * Claudia Auditore da Firenze
 * Petruccio Auditore da Firenze
 * Marcello Auditore
 * Flavia Auditore
 * Sofia Sartor

Trivia

 * "Auditore" is an Italian word meaning "auditor". An auditor is a person who maintains financial accounts of a business, which was likely a reference to the family's work in banking. Also auditore means a man who tails one of his firiends whic also he don't trust very much.
 * The Auditores identified themselves as Roman Catholic, but certain members of the family were also . Mario stated that he was "never much of a believer" during his mention of the villa chapel to Ezio, while Maria could be seen praying in her room.
 * As soon as Ezio was born, his father told him that he was an Auditore and he was a fighter, hinting at the family's Assassin background.
 * If the Palazzo Auditore was visited during the Bonfire of the Vanities DLC, Ezio could see his family as a loving memory.