Volturi

"The Volturi aren't supposed to be the villains, the way they seem to you. They are the foundation of our peace and civilization."
 * ―Edward Cullen to Bella Cullen and Jacob Black
 * The Volturi are the largest and most powerful coven of vampires. They enforce the laws of the vampire world.

The equivalent of royalty in the vampire world, the Volturi consists of 5 core members: Aro, Caius, Marcus, Sulpicia, and Athenodora. Marcus's wife (and Aro's sister) Didyme was also a member before she was killed by her brother. Aside from these head members, it also consists of a collection of powerfully imposing vampires, known as the "Volturi Guard", the most powerful being Chelsea, Jane, and Alec.

History
The Volturi were founded by Aro, Caius and Marcus, along with Athenodora. They were later joined by Sulpicia and Marcus's wife Didyme, who was also Aro's sister. The coven originated in Greece and proceeded to gather vampires with useful talents to build up their power, and eventually relocated to Volterra, Italy. When the coven became strong enough, the Volturi usurped control of the vampire world from the Romanian coven, the original ruling coven, and presented the laws of prohibiting vampires from being noticed by humans. After the Romanians were defeated in the century-long war, their next target was the Egyptians, with only two survivors from the demise, Amun and Kebi. Their power increased incredibly after recruiting Jane and Alec; two vampire twins with extremely powerful gifts, and subsequently made the coven untouchable. They presented the twins for the first time when the Romanian coven tried to regain control and defeated the army easily with their powers.

At one time, Marcus and his wife Didyme grew tired of the coven's warring lifestyle and planned on leaving. Aro was upset by this, but pretended to give them his support; however, Aro later secretly killed Didyme to prevent Marcus from leaving, because he found his brother-in-law's power much more useful than his sister's. Marcus spent a majority of time trying to find the murderer (he never realized it was Aro who did it), when he failed, he became suicidal. At this point, Aro met Chelsea and realized that she had the power to manipulate relationships and used her to keep Marcus loyal to the Volturi. The death of Didyme, however, prompted Caius and Aro to ensure tight security surveillance to their mates. As Chelsea's power is the key to their civilization, Aro always gives her what she wants (for example, her mate Afton, who is far less skilled than her), but he also uses Corin's gift to keep her from leaving. With Chelsea on their side, they were able to easily recruit other vampires who did not wish to join them (for example, Demetri, Renata and Heidi).

Purpose
The Volturi act as the unofficial royalty in the world of vampires and is an incredibly influential coven. They are also considered 'nighttime patrons of the arts' as, because of their inability to sleep, they study the arts at night. The Volturi act as guardians, keeping the secret society of vampires hidden from the human world as needed. They often send their agents to travel from Volterra to prevent overzealous covens from exposing vampires through mass eradication of every vampire (and any humans) present. The coven has existed for over 3000 years and is the largest coven in existence, followed by the Olympic, the Denali, and the Mexican covens.

The Volturi have ruled the vampire world for 25 centuries by the start of the series. During that time, the coven did a number of things to ensure stability in the world, including outlawing the creation of immortal children, cleaning up after the southern wars in the southern parts of America and creating their own vampires to spread their laws across the world. At some point, Caius was almost killed in a fight with a werewolf. Becoming terrified of his people's mortal enemies, he pushed the Volturi to hunt them to near extinction in Europe and Asia.

Carlisle Cullen, at one time, came to stay with the coven. The leaders enjoyed his company greatly, but were unable to persuade him to hunt humans instead of animals. Carlisle also tried to teach them values of human life, but to no avail either. The four were painted by Italian painter Francesco Solimena, who found their god-like appearances inspiring. Carlisle eventually left the coven after two decades and established his own coven in America. Eleazar also was once part of the Volturi guard, given the task to detect any individual (human or vampire) with a particular gift that might make him useful to the coven, but he eventually left with his mate Carmen. The two later found the Denali coven and joined them.

Laws
Throughout the centuries, the Volturi have established and enforced a number of laws that all vampires are expected to obey on pain of death. There aren't many of these laws, and they mainly concern the secrecy surrounding the existence of vampires.

The laws are not written down; to write them would in itself be an infraction. Instead, the laws are passed by word of mouth from vampire to vampire. Throughout the centuries, many vampires are born after the laws were established, and every vampire was taught of these laws by their creator. Though they think of the laws as an accepted fact, they do not know that it is really the Volturi's scheme to maintain control of the vampire world. To this day, many vampires continue to obey the laws. Like the Cullens are obeying, which leads them to move approximately every 6 to 7 years to avoid suspicion in the human world.
 * Hunts must be inconspicuous, with victims unlikely to be missed; their remains must be disposed of and territory must be changed often.
 * Incapable of self-control, and therefore a threat of exposure, Immortal Children are not to be created. Such creation is the ultimate taboo and punishable by death to both child, creator, those who defend the child and those who know of its existence.
 * Dealing with Children of the Moon, except for the purpose of extermination, is prohibited.
 * False witness, regardless of intent, is punishable by death.
 * Hunting is forbidden in Volterra, the town of residence of the Volturi; their food is brought from outside, sometimes from quite far away.
 * Attention should not be drawn and vampires should not be noticed in open sunlight.
 * The creator is responsible for his newborn's behavior and teaching of the laws before they can be released on their own. By letting a newborn hunt conspicuously, the penalty will be death to both newborn and creator. Even if the newborn is ignorant of the law, his rash acts are still punishable by death.
 * Vampires' interaction with humans must not draw wide attention. If a human becomes aware of them, the vampire at fault would be responsible for silencing that human. This mostly leads to two options: make the human join the immortals or silence that human permanently. As long as attention isn't drawn widely so that prompts the Volturi's involvement, they may never find out.

Leaders
Aro=
 * -|Caius=
 * -|Marcus=

Wives
Sulpicia=
 * -|Athenodora=

Mistresses and Children
Avery=
 * -|Asami=
 * -|Euphrasie=
 * -| Kirima=

Guard
Afton=
 * -|Alec=
 * -|Chelsea=
 * -|Corin=
 * -|Demetri=
 * -|Felix=
 * -|Heidi=
 * -|Jane=
 * -|Renata=
 * -|Santiago=

Retired
Eleazar=

Deceased
Didyme=
 * -|Gianna=