Podcast Summary:

New Books Network – Amanda G. Madden, "Civil Blood: Vendetta Violence and the Civic Elites in Early Modern Italy"
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Amanda Madden
Episode Date: January 18, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features an insightful conversation with Dr. Amanda Madden about her new book Civil Blood: Vendetta Violence and the Civic Elites in Early Modern Italy (Cornell UP, 2025). The discussion explores the realities of vendetta in 16th-century Italy, focusing specifically on Modena, and unpacks how vendetta was far more than random or chaotic violence—it was deeply embedded in elite civic life, politics, law, gender relations, and state formation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Study Vendetta? Project Genesis

• Dr. Madden’s research journey began with a digital history angle, originally intending a GIS mapping project on vendetta violence.
• Encouraged by colleagues, she chose to write a book that combined digital methods with archival research, revealing the multidimensional nature of vendetta.
• Quote:
  "As I continued to apply digital history methods to the research, I realized that vendetta violence couldn't be captured from a single angle. It needed to be examined as law, politics, social practice, gendered behavior, and lived experience."
  — Dr. Amanda Madden (04:18)

2. Defining Vendetta in Context

• Early modern Italians recognized vendetta as a structured, ritualized practice—not just spontaneous violence.
• Vendetta was distinguished by its public nature, strategic aims, and its connection to elite families’ assertion of justice and privilege.
• Example: The 1547 Bellincini-Fontana vendetta in Modena, illustrating multi-layered repercussions and deliberate strategies.
• Quote:
  "Vendetta was not a single act of violence, nor merely a one-time act of retaliation. It was really a complex system with moving parts unfolding over time and across spaces."
  — Dr. Amanda Madden (07:13)

3. Why Modena? Why This Case Study?

• The choice was initially serendipitous, based on rich archival sources: The detailed diary of Sister Lucia Piopi, who documented a dramatic vendetta episode.
• Modena provided especially vivid chronicles and firsthand accounts of elite feuds, making it an ideal lens for broader phenomena across Italian urban states.
• Quote:
  "What I found in Modena were unusually detailed firsthand accounts of vendetta among the city's leading families, along with commentary on how vendetta was understood, justified, and criticized—even by observers."
  — Dr. Amanda Madden (13:32)

4. The Political Fabric of Modena

• Modena was administered by local elites with little central oversight, especially after the Italian Wars and brief papal occupation.
• Vendetta among these elites was sustained and systematized; often, feuding families also governed together, paradoxically lending stability.
• Memorable Anecdote: The Duke urging Ludovico Bellincini to "just let me have my way this time," highlighting elite autonomy versus central authority (21:04).

5. Vendetta, Gender & Women’s Agency

• Vendetta was not exclusive to men—elite women and nuns played both direct and supporting roles in vendetta networks.
• The founding of women’s religious institutions such as Sister Lucia’s convent was connected to factional strife.
• Women were legally recognized in peace agreements and inheritance disputes relating to vendetta.
• Quote:
  "The nuns themselves were maintaining their family's rivalries. They had a consciousness that they could start their own fights and, you know, keep fights going."
  — Dr. Amanda Madden (28:04)

6. Marriage, Kinship, and the Limits of Reconciliation

• Elite family networks in Modena were highly intermarried, but marriage rarely reconciled feuding factions.
• Class solidarity and the protection of elite privileges frequently trumped individual animosities.
• Vendetta extended through marriage networks, sometimes drawing new members into feuds via kinship alliances.

7. Vendetta as a Driver and Product of Legal Reform

• Ongoing vendetta violence forced rulers, like the Este, to address issues of public order, weapons regulation, and elite privilege.
• Legal reforms in response to vendetta included gun control (particularly as firearms became common tools in vendettas) and property regulation.
• Elite families adeptly navigated, subverted, or adapted to these legislative measures—often outmaneuvering the state by pre-empting confiscation via wills and dowries.
• Quote:
  "Vendettas functioned as a stress test for the state. They did force rulers to confront the limits of their authority and, in many ways, to rethink how violence can be managed, regulated, and ultimately brought under control..."
  — Dr. Amanda Madden (38:13)

8. Long-term Impacts on Property and Inheritance

• Vendetta influenced wills and inheritance practices, as families created intricate legal arrangements to shelter property against state punitive measures.
• This prompted the state to legislate against such clauses, leading to protracted legal battles and, over time, refinement of civil law.
• Example: The Fontana family’s use of codicils to protect assets led to legal reforms and cases that lasted generations (44:11).

9. Rethinking State Formation and Violence

• The research challenges the classic opposition of vendetta (violence) and state-building (order).
• Vendetta actually helped clarify jurisdictional authority, legal boundaries, and class identity—integral to, not oppositional to, the state-building process.
• Quote:
  "Violence could be productive as a state, as well as fundamentally a part or an end piece of the state, as paradoxical as that is."
  — Dr. Amanda Madden (47:47)

10. Ongoing & Future Research

• Dr. Madden is working on a digital humanities project (Mapping Violence in Early Modern Italy) to enable comparative analysis of violence across regions.
• Current archival work in Venice focuses on questions of gender, criminality, space, and agency—especially women’s experiences and actions in the courts.
• She is also developing a university course on the history of video games.

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the ritual nature of vendetta:
  "Vendetta was something performed, ritualized, and understood within a shared civic framework."
  (06:46, Dr. Amanda Madden)

• A vivid source discovery:
  "I was translating a passage in her diary... a small box painted with flowers and tied with string that exploded when the recipient opened it... Sister Lucia was describing bladder bombs... in a nun’s diary!"
  (12:27, Dr. Amanda Madden)

• On the paradox of vendetta and governance:
  "Heads of these rival families, neighbors in Modena, continued to govern together... as if nothing had happened."
  (10:37, Dr. Amanda Madden)

• On property and legal dodges:
  "Officials realized that families involved in vendetta were deliberately channeling large portions of their patrimony to daughters under the guise of bride gifts, because women's property was not subject to the same rules on confiscation that men's property was."
  (40:45, Dr. Amanda Madden)

• On fundamental shifts in understanding violence:
  "I do argue that violence isn’t necessarily opposed to state formation. Difficult as that, paradoxical as that may be... vendetta really could actually clarify and reframe key political questions..."
  (47:10, Dr. Amanda Madden)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:37 – Podcast and guest introduction
• 02:48–05:05 – Why and how Dr. Madden wrote the book
• 05:46–11:43 – What vendetta was in context, illustrative example (Bellincini-Fontana case)
• 12:06–15:59 – Why Modena? The nun’s diary and rich archival sources
• 17:16–22:53 – Modena’s political system and vendetta's role in civic stability
• 26:48–29:41 – Gender, women, and nuns in vendetta networks
• 30:18–34:20 – Intermarriage and class solidarity among elites
• 36:19–39:28 – Vendetta driving legal and political reform
• 44:11–46:31 – Inheritance, wills, and the legal aftermath of vendetta
• 46:58–49:28 – Challenging traditional views on violence and state-building
• 49:28–52:40 – Dr. Madden’s ongoing and future research

Conclusion

This episode shatters the myths and melodramas surrounding early modern Italian vendetta, illuminating its intricate relationship with elite power, law, gender, and state-building. Dr. Madden’s cross-disciplinary approach, combining deep archival work with digital methods, makes Civil Blood both a narrative history and a rethinking of political violence as a formative—not just disruptive—force.

Listeners interested in early modern European history, legal culture, or the anthropology of violence will find Dr. Madden’s work both engaging and foundational for future research.