According to a vague tradition the Simoni drew their blood from the high and puissant Counts of Canossa. Michelangelo himself believed in this pedigree for which there is however no foundation in fact and no heraldic corroboration. According to his friend and biographer Condivi the sculptor's first Florentine ancestor was a Messer Simone dei Conti di Canossa who came in 1250 as Podesta to Florence.