According to tradition, the Tricano family - so, until the sixteenth century, were called the Arcano for the three black dogs of the coat of arms - settled in Friuli in the 6th century AD: when the Lombard Gisulfo stopped at Cividale constituting the first duchy, he asked his uncle Alboin to have at his court the son of a king of Croatia and this was Sigisbert, from whom he began "the inclined Casa Archana". The illustrious origin would then be remembered in the weapon with the introduction of silver and red chess. Henry of the Lords of Arcano is however cited in an act of 1042 but a true genealogical continuity is had with Leonardo «de Cornu», mentioned in a document of 1161, jurisdiction of a castle built near the water of the Horn.
Shortly thereafter, in 1209, thanks to the merits of Leonardo II, the Arcano obtained the titular title from the Emperor Otto IV. The family, already belonging to free feudality, in the area of the Patriarchate became one of the four major ministerial families - who were to accompany the newly elected patriarch to take possession of the seat of Ermagoras - and from time immemorial were inherited in the family the prestigious assignments of Confaloniere and Marescalco; to remember these tasks from the end of the sixteenth century the golden eagle in the blue field of the Patriarchate was introduced into the family crest. Still by inheritance law he occupied the tenth place in the Friulian Parliament. The Arcano reached the maximum power between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, lords of numerous fiefs located from high to low Friuli (among other things with half of the town of Venzone and the relative dazî), to Istria and Romagna, but with the advent of the Venetian Republic they lost a lot of the political role even though they managed to keep most of the castellan prerogatives. In the seventeenth century, Pietro d'Arcano married Margherita Grattoni - last descendant of the Friulian line of a noble family originally from Tortona close to the Visconti - inheriting the father-in-law's assets with the obligation to acquire the surname. This branch became extinct in the early nineteenth century with Anna Grattoni d'Arcano. From his marriage with his cousin Orazio d'Arcano originated the d'Arcano Grattoni, still existing.