The Obizzi family was an important Italian family of French descent with descendants in several cities of central and northern Italy, including Lucca, Ferrara, and Padua. The Obizzi owe their presence in Italy to Obicius I, captain to Emperor Henry II the Saint in 1007. Originally from Burgundy, it seems that he settled first in Tuscany, in Lucca, with the subsequent transfer of his descendants to Veneto. . The brother of Obicio, Frisco, who settled in Genoa, instead gave rise to the Fieschi family, a very important Ligurian family.
The Obizzi family accumulated immense economic fortunes thanks to strategic marriages with rich heirs and their profession as captains of fortune, owners as they were among one of the most sought-after and famous armies of the Europe of the time. The accumulated wealth allowed them to build a real palace, the Castle of Catajo on the Euganean Hills near Padua, enriching it over the centuries with important collections and precious frescoes. Extinct in the main branch in 1803 with the Marquis Tommaso Obizzi, they linked their entire patrimony to the archduke family Asburgo-Este, dukes of Modena.
The entire family tree of the Obizzi family is still visible in the halls of the Castello del Catajo, complete with all the ascendants and descendants, while the entire and legendary family story is told in forty squares through the frescoes by Gian Battista Zelotti.