King Alfonso III of Aragon is the Founder of the Militare Ordine di Collare di Sant'Agata dei Patern�. It was established as a knightly association on 23rd January 1289 for defending Minorca. The knights belonging to the fraternity were supposed to stay in the Fortress of Saint Agatha. That led to people calling them the knights from Saint Agatha.

Each of the knights was given a land adequate for keeping a horse and armour. The knightly fiefs were active in the seventeenth century and some of them were even seen in the 19th century. King James I of Aragon was the Founder of the Royal House to which king Alfonso III belonged. The dynasty ruled over places like Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Aragon, and Sicily till 1410. In 1410 King Martin I passed away without any issue and in 1413 the power passed away from the hands of the dynasty.

The headship of the Royal House continued through the Princes of Cassano and the House of Ayerbe until 1834. But when the last Prince of Cassano passed away childless the situation took a turn. Ferdinand II, the contemporary Bourbon King called the several branches of the dynasty to decide who was the head of the family. The conclave reached the conclusion that HRH don Mario should be recognized as the head of the family. The Order of the Collar of Saint Agatha was re-founded as a dynastic Order in the year 1855.

The Bourbon King of the Two Sicilies recognised the validity of the Order of the Collar of Saint Agatha in 1851. For a century starting from the year 1860 the Order continued to be a Family Order. As a matter of fact during this time the membership was kept within the limits of close associates and relatives. In 1961 the Order was reconstituted. An international organisation came into the forefront. Subsequently new Statutes were issued and a number of revisions also took place.

In Italy the position of the Royal House was acknowledged in Rivista Araldica 1922 and 1913. It was also recognized in Libro d'Oro 1922 as a sovereign foreign family living in Italy. There are three Italian Courts that have declared that the Military Order of the Collar as well as the Royal House to be legitimate entities. In December 1952 the United Court in Bari declared the legal status of the Royal House. In Pistoia the Court of Appeal in 1964 tried to evaluate if the Order was contrary to the Italian law nr 178. It found the order to be legitimate.

The same issue came to the focus when the Ordinary Tribunal of Ragusa tried to probe the matter and status of the Order in 2003. Professor Jacob Sundberg who is hailed as one of the stalwarts of public law in Europe has also compared the Royal House's head with a Head of State.

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