This digital history project maps instances of violence across early modern Italy, providing researchers and the public with new ways to understand historical patterns of conflict.

This project's main comparative and collaborative work aim will facilitate understanding the social, cultural, and political impacts of crime in various contexts. Due to the extensiveness of Italian judicial archives, multiple political configurations and governmental structures useful for comparisons, and some of the largest urban centers pre-1750, early modern Italy provides a valuable laboratory for the study of crime and violence. In addition, for most cities, chronicles, letters, and avvisi provide narrative commentary and context. Our central research questions include but are not limited to: What patterns in violent crime can we discern using GIS analysis and large datasets? How do spatial factors influence acts of violence? Has the spatial dimensions of violent crimes informed policing and punishment? How do relations between space and violence alter over time, and what can comparisons reveal?

The cathedral in Florence, the ponte dei pugni in Venice, the streets of Verona, the contrade di Siena–all of these are infamous sites of assassinations, battles, street fights, and violent rivalries during the premodern period in Italy. While Italy had higher rates of violence during the premodern period, the reasons for this are imperfectly understood. An understanding of the social, political, economic, and cultural factors which led to the amount and types of violence could provide insight into violent crime today, particularly in urban centers. Spatial analysis using digital tools will be particularly fruitful.

Using datasets compiled from court records, letters, chronicles, diplomatic dispatches, poems, histories, and family papers, from Bologna, Florence, Modena, Venice, Verona, Padua, and Vicenza, this project aims to allow researchers to to identify and analyze patterns and long-term trends in violence between 1500 and 1700. A central outcome of the project will be a database with publicly available datasets that enables researchers to obtain and contribute data for their own research purposes and pedagogical uses. A related aim of the project is to train students and researchers in GIS and spatial methodologies, making these tools more accessible.

Contributors