Daily Ancestorproietto
Proietto (also spelled projetto) in Italian records from Rome and the south means a foundling, a child abandoned by its parents.
Proietto comes from Latin proiectus, thrown forward, and today means a projectile. In Rome and some southern regions it was the word for a trovatello, a child abandoned by its parents. The plural is proietti, and old writers often used j for i, giving projetto.
The word is no longer used in this sense, but it survives in the surname Proietti. In a register it has the same meaning as esposto: look for the foundling home or the woman who brought the child, and for genitori ignoti, parents unknown.
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Daily Ancestor. "proietto." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/italian/proietto. Last checked 2026-10-28.