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‘HE SAW WHAT HE WANTED TO SEE’: REPUTATION, JEALOUSY, AND THE LAW. THE UXORICIDE OF GISELDA ZANOLO
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2021
Abstract
Drawing on articles published in the Corriere della Sera, Il Popolo d'Italia and La Stampa, this study examines a case of uxoricide that occurred in 1923, focusing on the way in which the murderer and his lawyers were able to convince both the general public and the jury that the murderer's jealous nature was a mental illness, leading to him avoiding a prison sentence. The victim, the murderer's wife, was depicted as a physically attractive woman of dubious sexual reputation. Such characteristics were deemed to have triggered her husband's jealousy, thus rendering her culpable, the agent of her own homicide. In place of a picture of uxoricide in revenge for tarnished honour, the murderer portrayed himself as the powerless victim of love and jealousy. Through a close analysis of the strategy adopted by the defendant's lawyers, this article shows how centuries-old gendered stereotypes and ideas of respectability affected the law in action and permeated early twentieth-century Italian society.
Attraverso l'analisi degli articoli apparsi sul Corriere della Sera, Il Popolo d'Italia e La Stampa, questo studio esamina un caso di uxoricidio avvenuto nel 1923 e si concentra su come l'assassino e i suoi avvocati riuscirono a convincere il pubblico e la giuria che la natura gelosa dell'imputato fosse una malattia mentale evitandogli, di conseguenza, la prigione. La vittima, moglie dell'assassino, è raffigurata come una donna fisicamente attraente e dalla dubbia reputazione: tali caratteristiche avrebbero scatenato la gelosia del marito, rendendola in qualche misura colpevole e quindi complice del suo stesso omicidio. L'uxoricida non dà di sé l'immagine di un uomo che ha vendicato il suo onore, ma ritrae la propria persona come una vittima impotente dell'amore e della gelosia. Questo articolo mostra come la strategia adottata dagli avvocati dell'imputato abbiano manipolato a loro favore gli stereotipi di genere e le idee sul senso di rispettabilità che permeavano la società italiana del primo Novecento, influenzando la legge in azione.
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References
REFERENCES
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Rendall, J. (1999) Women and the public sphere. Gender and History 11: 475–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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Sighele, S. (1893) Una tempesta nell'ombra. In Bianchi, A.G., Ferrero, G. and Sighele, S. (eds), Il mondo criminale italiano: 29–45. Milan, Omodei Zorini.Google Scholar
Willson, P. (2004) Introduction: gender and the private sphere in Liberal and Fascist Italy. In Willson, P. (ed.), Gender, Family and Sexuality: The Private Sphere in Italy, 1860–1945: 1– 19. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willson, P. (2009) Women in Mussolini's Italy 1922–45. In Bosworth, R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 203–20. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodley, D. (2010) Fascism and Political Theory: Critical Perspectives on Fascist Ideology. Abingdon, Routledge.Google Scholar
The Digest of Justinian, ed. A. Watson, 4 vols. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Corriere della Sera (15 January 1925). La tormentosa passione dell'uxoricida di Milanino rievocata innanzi ai giurati: 4 (CDS15).Google Scholar
Corriere della Sera (16 January 1925). L'uxoricida di Milanino esente da pena per vizio di mente ed internato in un manicomio: 4 (CDS16).Google Scholar
Il Popolo d'Italia (15 January 1925). L'uxoricidio di Milanino. Il ferroviere che uccise la moglie per gelosia del fratello: 4 (IPI15).Google Scholar
Il Popolo d'Italia (16 January 1925). L'uxoricida del Milanino assolto per infermità mentale: 4 (IPI16).Google Scholar
La Stampa (16 January 1925). L'uccisore della moglie assolto dai giurati milanesi ma internato in un manicomio: 4 (LS16).Google Scholar
Babini, V.P., Beccalossi, C. and Riall, L. (2015) (eds) Italian Sexualities Uncovered, 1789–1914. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bianchi, A.G. (1893) Isidoro De Maestri. In Bianchi, F. and Sighele, S. (eds), Il mondo criminale italiano: 56–71. Milan, Omodei Zorini.Google Scholar
Bianchi, A.G., Ferrero, G. and Sighele, S. (1893) (eds) Il mondo criminale italiano, preface by Lombroso, C.. Milan, Omodei Zorini.Google Scholar
Brundage, J.A. (1987) Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cabanis, P.J.G. (1843 [1802]) Rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme. Paris, Fortin, Masson.Google Scholar
Cantarella, E. (1991) Homicides of honor: the development of Italian adultery law over two millennia. In Kertzer, D.I. and Saller, R.P. (eds), The Family in Italy: From Antiquity to the Present: 229–44. New Haven/London, Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Champagne, J. (2012) Aesthetic Modernism and Masculinity in Fascist Italy. New York, Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, D. (1991) The Augustan law on adultery: the social and cultural context. In Kertzer, D.I. and Saller, R.P. (eds), The Family in Italy: From Antiquity to the Present: 109–26. New Haven/London, Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Cutrufelli, M.R. (1994) (ed.) Piccole italiane: un raggiro durato vent'anni. Milan, Anabasi.Google Scholar
Daumas, M. (2008) Adulteri e cornuti: storia della sessualità maschile tra medioevo e modernità. Bari, Dedalo.Google Scholar
Delmedico, S. (forthcoming) Opposing Patriarchy: Women and the Law in Action in Pre-Unification Italy (1815–1865). London, IMLR Book Series.Google Scholar
D'Onofrio, S. (2004) Onore e disonore in Sicilia. In Velasco, H.M., Fournier, D. and Viana, L. Díaz (eds), La antropología como pasión y como práctica: ensayos in honorem Julian Pitt-Rivers: 201–28. Madrid, CSIS.Google Scholar
Earle Ferguson, E. (2006) Judicial authority and popular justice: crimes of passion in fin-de-siècle Paris. Journal of Social History 40: 293–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goddard, V. (1987) Honour and shame: the control of women's sexuality and group identity in Naples. In Caplan, P. (ed.), The Cultural Construction of Sexuality: 166–92. London, Tavistock.Google Scholar
Gori, G. (2004) Italian Fascism and the Female Body: Sport, Submissive Women and Strong Mothers. London, Routledge.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. (1996) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge (MA), MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lombroso, C. and Bianchi, A.G. (1905) Il caso di Alberto Olivo. Milan, Libreria editrice nazionale.Google Scholar
Massironi, A. (2016) The father's right to kill his adulterous daughter in the late ius commune. In di Renzo Villata, M.G. (ed.), Family Law and Society in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Era: 187–215. Cham, Springer International Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthews, M. (2017) Deadly words, deadly deeds: honor, sexuality, and uxoricide in Porfirian Mexico. Journal of Social History 51: 341–63.Google Scholar
Meldini, P. (1975) Sposa e madre esemplare: ideologia e politica della donna e della famiglia durante il fascismo. Rimini, Guaraldi.Google Scholar
Mitchell, K. and Sanson, H. (2013) Introduction. In Mitchell, K. and Sanson, H. (eds), Women and Gender in Post-Unification Italy: Between Private and Public Spheres: 1–9. Oxford, Lang.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molino-Colombini, G. (1851) Sulla educazione della donna: pensieri. Turin, Fory and Dalmazzo.Google Scholar
Musumeci, E. (2015) Emozioni, crimine, giustizia: un'indagine storico-giuridica tra Otto e Novecento. Milan, FrancoAngeli.Google Scholar
Okin, S.M. (1992) Women in Western Political Thought. Princeton, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Olivo, A. (1988) Ira fatale: autobiografia di un uxoricida, with afterword by E. Cavazzoni. Turin, Bollati Boringhieri.Google Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, J. (1965) Honour and social status. In Peristiany, J. (ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society: 19–77. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Pompei, M. (1930) Critica fascista. Cited in M.A. Macciocchi (1976) La donna nera: consenso femminile e fascism. Milan, Feltrinelli.Google Scholar
Rendall, J. (1999) Women and the public sphere. Gender and History 11: 475–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ruggiero, G. (1989) The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sighele, S. (1893) Una tempesta nell'ombra. In Bianchi, A.G., Ferrero, G. and Sighele, S. (eds), Il mondo criminale italiano: 29–45. Milan, Omodei Zorini.Google Scholar
Willson, P. (2004) Introduction: gender and the private sphere in Liberal and Fascist Italy. In Willson, P. (ed.), Gender, Family and Sexuality: The Private Sphere in Italy, 1860–1945: 1– 19. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willson, P. (2009) Women in Mussolini's Italy 1922–45. In Bosworth, R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 203–20. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodley, D. (2010) Fascism and Political Theory: Critical Perspectives on Fascist Ideology. Abingdon, Routledge.Google Scholar