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L'albero genealogico risale a un re famoso, eppure siamo poveri.

L'albero genealogico risale a un re famoso, eppure siamo poveri.
The family tree goes back to a famous king, and yet we are poor.
From Lesson 278:Contrastive connectors (tuttavia, eppure)·Italian

Questions & Answers about L'albero genealogico risale a un re famoso, eppure siamo poveri.

What does eppure add to this sentence that a simple ma wouldn't?
While ma simply means but, eppure translates to and yet or nevertheless. It emphasizes the strong contrast or surprise between the two facts: having royal ancestors and yet still being poor.
Why do we use the preposition a after risale?
The verb risalire means to go back or to date back. In Italian, when you mention the specific time or person something dates back to, you must connect it using the preposition a.
The word re means king. How would I say kings in the plural?
It stays exactly the same! The word re is an invariable noun, meaning its ending does not change in the plural. You just change the article before it, for example, i re means the kings.
Why do the adjectives come after the nouns in albero genealogico and re famoso?
As a quick refresher, Italian descriptive adjectives usually go right after the noun they modify. Here, genealogico tells us what kind of tree it is, and famoso describes the king, so they both naturally follow their nouns.

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