I had always vaguely known that my family name has Tuscan roots. There was a Mario Guiducci, for instance, a friend and pupil of Galileo who in 1619 put his name to a Discourse on Comets, a treatise that, as it happens, was largely written by Galileo himself. One evening I found myself thinking about this again, and doing some idle research online I stumbled into the various coats of arms attached to the name. I was fascinated by them, not because I believe in noble blood or want to claim any, but because the idea of having an image tied to my name, a logo, somehow made my own lineage feel concrete.