1774 was the year not only of the Dixit Dominus but also of the Ritterstand, the edict that raised the Martines family to the Austrian aristocracy. The copy of the decree that survived the fire of 1927, apparently a rough draft, sets forth the accomplishments of the four living Martines brothers. It makes no mention of Marianna.

By the time of the decree, Dionysius had already accomplished valuable things as a mine engineer, Johann Baptist was serving as a loyal infantry officer, Carl Boromeus was a conscientious official in the Austro-Bohemian Imperial Chancellery, and Marianna had been received into the imperial presence; still, there can be no doubt that it was primarily Joseph who won this honor for the family. He had demonstrated ability in a dozen languages; he had created a new catalogue for the vast court library and reorganized the Imperial coin collection; he had translated the Codex Theresianus (the archducal legal code) into Italian so that it might better serve the Monarchy's domains in Italy; and, most important, he had served as a tutor to three Hapsburg princesses and especially to the future emperor. While his services were neither heroic nor dramatic, he rendered them directly under the imperial eye.

Even Joseph's considerable talents alone might not have brought him such success had he, and his whole family, not enjoyed the unwavering support of Metastasio, whose influence on the imperial family, when he chose to exercise it, must have been substantial. The Martines family owed its advancement to Joseph's enviable access to the imperial family; for that access, however, he probably had Metastasio to thank.

The surviving draft file includes an elaborate Martines coat of arms, which signified that the family now belonged not to the imperial knighthood but to the more modest rank of the erbländische Ritterschaft, the knighthood of Maria Theresa as queen of Hungary and archduchess of Austria. Although documents explicitly confer this honor only on the four Martines brothers and their heirs, it applied to the entire family, including our composer, who was now entitled to sign herself Marianna von Martines.

The social class into which Marianna rose in 1774 was nicely described by Johann Pezzl in a book about Vienna published in several installments between 1786 and 1790.