Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta in Renaissance Italy

by Edward Muir

On a winter morning in 1511, the first day of Carnival, a thousand militiamen entered the northern Italian city of Udine. Weary after a long campaign of battling German raiders, the soldiers began to drink--and then to brawl, and eventually to loot and burn the palaces of the wealthy. The peasants of the surrounding countryside joined in, and before long some 50 noblemen had been murdered, setting in chain a wave of reprisals through the Mediterranean blood-avenging system called vendetta. In this vigorously told reconstruction of those events, Edward Muir shows the powerful possibilities of the mentalités school of history, in which the attitudes and beliefs of historical actors are given as much due as other social and economic forces. While admitting that the events in Udine were a sideshow in a much larger struggle between the peasantry and the nobility in early modern Europe, Muir throws them into sharp relief; what was important to the actors in that drama was not the big picture of contemporary affairs but a specific code of manners in which manhood was declared violently. For them, "death was neither accidental nor natural but was the result of a fight between phantom forces composed of the shades of the dead who enacted revenge among humans by employing living agents." Those agents visited northern Italy with a vengeance, and anyone interested in Renaissance history will want to read Muir's account of their actions. --Gregory McNamee

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Italy, Historical, Renaissance

240 pages, ebook

First published September 1, 1993

Reviews

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Late on the cold gray morning of February 27, 1511, more than a thousand militiamen, who had been searching since dawn for a raiding party of German mercenaries, stumbled back thorugh the gates of Udine. It was the first day of Carnival. The men were tired, hungry, angry. They began to drink. Throught the mystery alchemy of crowd behavior, the men ignated a conflagaration, looting and burning the urban palaces of more than a score of teh great lords of Friuli who were rumored to be in league with the enemy. A huge crowd of Udinesi and peasants in town for the holiday joined in, and during three days of rioting they killed between twenty-five and fifty nobles and their retainers." (Muir, XIX).

Thus begins a wonderfully rich and evocative account of the 'vendetta' based killings in the Venetian territory of Friuli during the early years of the 16th century, a group of killings which reveals much concerning the nature of the pre-modern period in Italy, and a myriad number of other subjects, all in clear, unsullied prose designed to entertain and educate. Designed for both the specialists in the field and the general reader, "Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta in Renaissance Italy" is a quite enjoyable foray into the field of histography, all in the capable hands of a master historian. It is all here: the story of Antonio Savorgnan, the mastermind behind the massacre whose own death a year later embodied clearly the nature of these brutal, venal crimes; the Venetian Republic, newly minted masters of Fruili, a backwards land, who could not adjust these new territories to their own set of laws; the Austrian Empire, with its own malevolent intentions on their Southern neighbor; the Turks, whose forays into the region predicted so much fear and hatred; and finally, the Pope, whose corruption dovetails nicely with the sordid goings on in this world untouched by the air of civilization which was just over the horizon (so to speak). And this brief review hardly does justice to the detailed analysis, couched in smooth pellucid prose, that is the lion's shared of this book. You get it all here: sociological analysis of the nature of Clans; metaphysical reviews of the blending of animals and humans in the days of Carnival; and the historical movement away from vendetta brought about, as attested by Dr. Muir, the development of dueling, refined and civilized dueling, as an alternative to the bloodletting that was 'vendetta.'

This is a really entertaining book, filled with insights that enlighten the mind and that make clear a world (and region) far removed from our own hyper-civilized, digitized world. And this book does it in all the correct ways: comprehensive, finely detailed, easy to comprehend: read this book!

[Lucas Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book accurately depicts the subject of Vendettas during the Renaissance, the author Edward Muir backs his thesis on the significance of Vendettas by using historical context and societal impact while explaining how Vendettas were not spontaneous but tied together. This view on the Renaissance is unusual compared to the common belief that this period was only for the growth of arts and ideas, the darkness of the Renaissance is usually overlooked but Muir acknowledges this perfectly.

[Karren Savorgnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of the Savorgnan’s. A bit dry considering all of the fantastic history that is wrapped around Friuli and the Savorgnan family.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but suprisingly dry considering the subject matter: vendetta and factional violence (interspersed with actual warfare) in the Venetian territory of Friuli building up to the "Cruel Carnival" (with its attendant massacres, lootings, peasant uprsings, arson and assorted atrocities - including a good bit of feeding victims bodies to dogs or pigs - and in at least one incident both animals simultaneously) in 1511. The author also covers the aftermath (social, political and judicial) of the incident as well as the culture of vendetta itself (possessing its own legends and symbolism) and the eventual decline of vendetta and the rise of more formalized dueling in the region.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book gives the reader a proper insight of the events that led to the Blood Carnival in Udine and the later outcomes of the same event. In itself the event itseld is not important, however without it a researcher/academic wouldn't have the motivation of looking into deep on the reasons and consequences this bloodshed consitutes within the Reneissance time and the area of (patria del) Friuli.

Certainly, a must read, especially for scholars/adacemics/researchers of Early Modern Europe and Reneissance.

PS: There is also an Italian version of the same text, and another Italian author wrote about the same event (of course, in Italian) and his book is translated into Slovene as well.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

As it turns out, vendettas were pretty badass. This book's a pretty good read, and not too difficult at all. If you're a sucker for the darker side of history, this is probably right up your alley.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally pretty good - would have given it 3.5 stars if I could. A little too much on the imagery of dogs eating corpses for true bedtime reading, though.