Murder in Renaissance Italy

This invaluable collection explores the many faces of murder, and its cultural presences, across the Italian peninsula between 1350 and 1650. These shape the content in different ways: the faces of homicide range from the ordinary to the sensational, from the professional to the accidental, from the domestic to the public; while the cultural presence of homicide is revealed through new studies of sculpture, paintings, and popular literature. Dealing with a range of murders, and informed by the latest criminological research on homicide, it brings together new research by an international team of specialists on a broad range of themes: different kinds of killers (by gender, occupation, and situation); different kinds of victim (by ethnicity, gender, and status); and different kinds of evidence (legal, judicial, literary, and pictorial). It will be an indispensable resource for students of Renaissance Italy, late medieval/early modern crime and violence, and homicide studies.

Introducing Renaissance killers Trevor Dean and K. J. P. Lowe; Part I. Domestic Murder: 1. The first murder: the representation of Cain and Abel in Bologna, Florence and Bergamo Scott Nethersole; 2. Knives and poisons: stereotypes of male vendetta and female perfidy in late Medieval Sicily, 1293–1460 Henri Bresc; 3. A daughter-killing digested, and accepted (Sabine district of Rome, 1563 to 1566) Thomas V. Cohen; Part II: Ordinary Murder: 4. Eight varieties of homicide: Bologna in the 1340s and 1440s Trevor Dean; 5. Homicide in a culture of hatred: Bologna, 1352–1420 Sarah Rubin Blanshei; Part III. Sensational Murder: 6. Truths and lies of a renaissance murder: Duke Alessandro de' Medici's death between history, narrative and memory Stefano Dall'Aglio; 7. 'O Facinus Inauditum' (O horrendous crime): anthropophagy in Renaissance Milan Silvio Leydi; 8. Murder ballads: singing, hearing, writing and reading about murder in Renaissance Italy Rosa Salzberg and Massimo Rospocher; Part IV. Unclassifiable Murder: 9. Redrawing the line between murder and suicide in Renaissance Italy K. J. P. Lowe; 10. Violent conflicts and murder involving Jews in Renaissance Italy Anna Esposito; 11. Poison and poisoning in Renaissance Italy Alessandro Pastore; Part V. Professional Murder: 12. Mass murder in sacks during the Italian wars, 1494–1559 Stephen Bowd; 13. Legal homicide: the death penalty in the Italian Renaissance Enrica Guerra; 14. Butchers as murderers in Renaissance Italy C. D. Dickerson, III.

Trevor Dean is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Roehampton, and one of the leading historians of crime in medieval Europe. His previous related publications include Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy (Cambridge, 2007) and a volume of essays, also co-edited with K. J. P. Lowe, entitled Crime, Law and Society in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 1994).
K. J. P. Lowe is Professor of Renaissance History and Culture at Queen Mary University of London. Her previous publications include Church and Politics in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 2002) and Nuns' Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy (Cambridge, 2003), and she edited (with T. F. Earle) Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge, 2005). Her latest book, edited with Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, is The Global City: On the Streets of Renaissance Lisbon (2015).