  This paper has a twofold goal. The first aim is to provide a deeper
understanding of the family of the Real Elliptically Symmetric (RES)
distributions by investigating their intrinsic semiparametric nature. The
second aim is to derive a semiparametric lower bound for the estimation of the
parametric component of the model. The RES distributions represent a
semiparametric model where the parametric part is given by the mean vector and
by the scatter matrix while the non-parametric, infinite-dimensional, part is
represented by the density generator. Since, in practical applications, we are
often interested only in the estimation of the parametric component, the
density generator can be considered as nuisance. The first part of the paper is
dedicated to conveniently place the RES distributions in the framework of the
semiparametric group models. The second part of the paper, building on the
mathematical tools previously introduced, the Constrained Semiparametric
Cram\'{e}r-Rao Bound (CSCRB) for the estimation of the mean vector and of the
constrained scatter matrix of a RES distributed random vector is introduced.
The CSCRB provides a lower bound on the Mean Squared Error (MSE) of any robust
$M$-estimator of mean vector and scatter matrix when no a-priori information on
the density generator is available. A closed form expression for the CSCRB is
derived. Finally, in simulations, we assess the statistical efficiency of the
Tyler's and Huber's scatter matrix $M$-estimators with respect to the CSCRB.
