About the Project

Amanda Madden and Colin Rose began conceiving of Modeling and Mapping Violence in Early Modern Italy in 2015. Drawing on their expertise in the history of violence and digital spatial analysis, they began by identifying datasets suitable for spatial history methods, assessing necessary resources, and consulting with potential collaborators and users.

During the 2022–23 academic year, Madden and Jason Heppler partnered with a Junior Capstone Team at the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop an early website prototype, including a design mock-up and initial codebase. Junior Capstone teams collaborate with clients to produce proof-of-concept projects for academic credit. The prototype code was deposited in the RRCHNM GitHub repository for open reuse. Rachel Midura and Andrew Vidali joined the project as co-principal investigators in 2023.

Amanda Madden was awarded a CHSS seed grant for the school year 2025-26 to work with Jason Heppler to refine the data model and prototype the database.

Archival Research and Data Collection

In 2022, Madden, supported by grants from the Delmas Foundation for Venetian Studies and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University, conducted archival research in Bologna, Modena, Verona, Vicenza, and Venice, digitizing a broad range of criminal records. Colin Rose undertook complementary research in Florence during the summers of 2022 and 2023.

Archival materials were selected for their richness and compatibility with spatial analysis, with attention to metadata such as dates, gender, age, occupation, relationships between victims and assailants, motives, weapons used, sentencing, and—crucially—locations that could be georeferenced. Additional digitization efforts by Rose, Rachel Midura, and Andrew Vidali have expanded the dataset with sources from Venice, Padua, and Florence.

Current Datasets and Findings

The project currently includes georeferenced datasets from Bologna, Venice, and Modena, along with georectified historical maps and GIS shapefiles. These datasets not only enable quantitative analysis but also contextualize violence within its social, political, and environmental dimensions.

Preliminary findings already point to distinct regional and temporal patterns:

  • In Verona, the rise of firearm ownership among all classes and genders led authorities to differentiate assault with a gun from other forms of assault and to adjust penalties accordingly.
  • In Venice, cases of violent slander and insult decline among men but remain stable among women.
  • In Bologna, vendettas persist across the period even as dueling appears to decrease.

Next Steps

The team is continuing to curate and expand these datasets, identify gaps in coverage, and develop prototype maps for comparative analysis of crime, gender, and space. Current datasets include:

  • Bologna
  • Modena
  • Venice

These datasets provide the foundation for cross-regional comparison and future collection efforts.

Outreach and Collaboration

The co-directors have presented early findings at multiple conferences, organized scholarly panels, and are preparing publications and edited volumes on early modern violence.