ABSTRACT
Italian studies on feuding in Italy in the years 1200–1500 have chiefly focused on central-northern Italy. However, this area does not represent a homogeneous context, since marked regional differences are detectable. In certain areas, such as Lombardy and the Veneto, vendetta would appear to have played a limited role in structuring society, while its presence is far more pervasive in other regions, such as Tuscany and Friuli. From the social point of view, feuding is chiefly associated with the elites, who were better equipped to bear the significant costs it entailed. However, in the period under consideration, the role of State authorities with regard to criminal justice increased more or less everywhere, limiting – yet not eliminating – independent vendettas by social actors. Nevertheless, despite the unquestionably public and dramatised nature of most these actions, feuding would appear to have lacked the kind of codification and detailed rituals visible in other medieval and modern European contexts. Despite the diversity of regional contexts and social milieus, and the limited ritualism associated with feuding in the area in question, the discourse on vendetta remained an important element in the cultural landscape of central-northern Italy, one capable of influencing the expectations and actions of social and political actors.
