Introduction

Justice in late medieval Italy has, in recent years, been a subject of considerable interest to historians and of a profound interpretative revision. This has been due, in part, to a spread of historiographic tendencies, including studies in Italy, which, since the 1970s, have favoured judicial sources, making this one of the principal areas of international research. Furthermore, the administration of justice has proved a rich area of research in the branch of studies concerning the formation of the state, which has characterised research on political history in Renaissance Italy. Overall, this research has brought forward new knowledge and has played a part in building an often original profile of criminality, judicial institutions and trial courts. A shift in direction has also been of fundamental importance, and research has moved away from studies chiefly centred on analyses of the administration of public justice. Emphasis has now been placed on the plurality of judicial systems, which result not only in court actions, but also in various measures for solving disputes that may operate outside the courts.

In the 1970s scholars’ attention was still focused on violence and the transition from ‘community-based’ methods of social control and judicial order to more strictly ‘state’ structures. A change can be seen in the 1980s, when research explored the dimensions of the public function of justice, underlining the centrality of court procedures, the advisory role of jurists, and the plurality of jurisdictions. From the 1990s, understanding of the plurality of judicial practices (violent and peaceful, extra-procedural and sanctionary) for conducting and settling disputes increased. Research also highlighted that practices previously considered marginal or ‘pathological’, such as vendettas, feuds, peace-making, arbitrations and the entire range of non-procedural methods of resolving conflicts, were in fact widely and commonly used. These practices indeed constituted the largest sphere of justice in late medieval Italy. Not only, then, was there a plurality of judicial fora, but also of judicial systems. With the aim of overcoming traditional notions of the public function of justice and the progressive rise of the state, the understanding of medieval justice has considerably broadened. An important result of this change in perspective has been a widening of the range of documentation used by scholars. In addition to court documents, legal sources and statutes, other documents are now used including notary sources, council deliberations, written ricordanze and chronicles.