Tesserae gentilitiae

Hello Folks,

Would anyone out there know what "Tesserae gentilitiae" means in Latin?
I have translated it as a "token of clan membership." Is this even
close?

Odysseus...

Maybe overly literal or classical: something like "familial ensigns
(or insignia)" might be more natural in an early-modern English title.

Chris Pitt Lewis...

Or just "family coats of arms". Tessera can be used in the sense of
"coat of arms" - Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word List from British
and Irish sources quotes it in that sense from 1654.

Gentilitius or gentilicius is more complicated - it is an adjective
whose meaning is "pertaining to a gens", and the primary meaning of gens
is "family" or "clan" depending on context. But gens can also be used in
the post classical and medieval periods in the sense of "nation", and
so, by extension, gentiles, pagans or just foreigners. And "gentilis" is
used to mean "of gentle birth", so I suppose it would be possible to use
"gentilitius" in a similar sense.

So probably "family", but you may need to look at the contents of the
book to check that it is not intended in some other sense.

Apparently, these words are used in the title of Silvester Petra
Sancta's second treatise on heraldry (_Tesserae Gentilitiae ex legibus
Fecialium descriptae_ published in Rome in 1638).

Barton uses this term in his 1788 essay on heraldry in America.

Any help translating this term would be appreciated.

George Lucki...

I would be looking at something like arms of the aristocracy or ensigns of
nobility.
George Lucki