SOMETIME IN THE early 18th century, the House of Zaforteza, a noble Majorcan family thought to be descended from medieval Florentine settlers, deepened their alliance with other prominent local families to form the Nine Houses, or the Nou Cases, as they’re known in Catalan. Knit together by endogamy — common in those days among the Mediterranean aristocracy — these dynasties had built, inherited or acquired the majority of the properties throughout the island by the end of that century.