526 claudio povolo
kin, whose influence could be brought to bear on the political and legal
institutions in Vicenza. the victims’ denunciations to the court in that city
in the preceding years had proven useless. Many of them, intimidated and
resigned, had finally accepted the situation and given up on any hope of
earthly justice. fra Ludovico oddi, the village curate, had assumed respon-
sibility for the petitions after learning in confession of the suffering of the
women whom orgiano had raped. but matters would still probably not
have changed had orgiano’s abusive and violent behavior not accompa-
nied a more general determination on the part of the local landowning
nobility to intimidate socially ambitious peasant families who had begun
to refuse to accept the traditional patronage relationships controlled by
the aristocracy or the political domination that the city of Vicenza had
exercised over the countryside for centuries. the actual, and more subtle,
aim of Paolo orgiano’s violence and attacks upon the honor of women
was to abase the honor of the men who, as the women’s guardians, should
have protected them; and, ultimately, to take away the honor of those
families who aspired to greater social prominence.
figure 13.2. tignale, sanctuary of Montecastello (brescia), ex-voto that describes
the death of Zanzanù.