Civil Blood: Vendetta Violence and the Civic Elites in Early Modern Italy

by Amanda G. Madden

Overview

Civil Blood is a study of the practice of vendetta among the civic elites in sixteenth-century Italy and illustrates the complex and integral role that vendetta violence played in civic life and state formation on the winding path to state centralization. At many temporal, geographic, and political points in early modern Italy, vendetta appears to have not only disrupted but also constituted the processes by which the modern state emerged.

Amanda G. Madden examines vendetta as both central to politics and as an engine of change and illustrates the degree to which key phenomena of the period—state centralization, growing bureaucracies, institutional reforms, and the process of state formation—were interpenetrated by, and not simply opposed to, ongoing factional violence among civic elites.

Madden further illuminates in Civil Blood how elites utilized violent enmities to maintain a grip on political control and negotiated with the duke concerning political power and civic prerogatives. As a result, ruling elites not only defined their own place in governance but also shaped the function and definition of government.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501781902
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	11/15/2025
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Amanda G. Madden is Assistant Professor of History at George Mason University and Affiliate Faculty at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. She focuses on networks, urban spaces, and the social history of violence in early modern Italy.

What People are Saying About This

John Christopoulos

Madden offers a penetrating and multifaceted investigation of the whos, whats, and whys of vendetta violence in sixteenth-century Modena.

Peter Sposato

The arguments in Civil Blood are deeply erudite, thought-provoking, and persuasive, in no small part thanks to Amanda G. Madden's expert marshaling of diverse qualitative and quantitative evidence. This book was a joy to read and makes a significant contribution to the field.