liturgies of violence 531
it seems clear that only the exceptionally pressing need for social and
public order permitted the formulation and promulgation of these laws
in a political context still deeply rooted in a traditional vision of juris-
diction and order based on the laws and customs of the subject cities.44
these laws, however, would certainly have remained ineffective if they
had not been accompanied by a revolution in the administration of crimi-
nal justice. indeed, beginning in the 1580s, the council of ten expanded
its authority over the courts of the large cities of the Veneto and Lombard
plains. through delegation, which it increased over the course of the first
decades of the 17th century, the council of ten decisively entered into the
settlement of conflicts, particularly noble feuds, which had long been the
prerogative of local courts using local laws and procedures that primarily
promoted the restoration of peace.
all cases held to be particularly important for the maintenance of pub-
lic order or for other political reasons were delegated to the rettori of the
largest cities of the terraferma or to the highest Venetian political rep-
resentatives in the stato da mar. wielding broad powers, they were able
to proceed in the cases using the recent laws issued by Venice and the
council of ten’s inquisitorial procedure, which was secret and unencum-
bered by the customary procedural safeguards. the accused had no right
to the assistance of a lawyer and had to defend himself without knowing
the identities of the witnesses called to testify. the trials were entrusted to
the chancellery of the podestà, to the exclusion of local notaries and any
other form of legal privilege enjoyed by the city.45
over the course of the 17th century, the control initiatives expanded
significantly and even infiltrated the traditional legal procedures still
characterized by disputation. city statutes were circumvented by giving
the rettori the ability to impose very severe punishments and to forbid the
granting of bail to the accused. in short, the criminal process underwent
important transformations whose essential importance lay in the stronger
powers granted to investigating magistrates generally as well as in their
inquiries into the truth of the facts. the banishment laws, which became
44 John bossy has identified the persistence of a christian “moral tradition” above all
in the efforts of some bishops (such as carlo borromeo) to establish peace between rival
groups in active conflict, John bossy, Peace in the Post-Reformation (cambridge, 2004),
pp. 10–29. it is likely, however, that these pacification efforts could not ignore petitions
and requests that, while they were connected to traditional cultural and religious values,
were operating in a strikingly new social and political context.
45 Povolo, L’intrigo, pp. 171–74.