Dr Andrew Vidali

Assistant Professor in Early Modern European History

My research interests in the history of early modern Europe include diverse themes and areas. Between 2016 and 2020, I carried out my doctoral research at the University of Trieste, focusing on the relations between criminal justice and noble violence in 16th century Venice. After completing my PhD, I won a visiting junior fellowship in the Field of Excellence “Dimensions of Europeanization” at Karl-Franzens Universität, in Graz, between 2020 and 2021. The research project investigated the proto-extradition agreements elaborated by Italian Renaissance states; in this way, I expanded my previous investigations and included the relationships between borders, criminal justice, diplomacy, and banditry in 15th and 16th century Northern and Central Italy. On the basis of the doctoral research, I developed a Marie Curie project to investigate violence and its control in the Venetian Republic between 1500 and 1797, ViolenControl. The project was awarded by the European Council Research and was carried out at the University of York between September 2021 and August 2023. I am also interested in the social and political aspects of early modern Catholicism, with a focus on godparenthood as well as the political, social, and criminal justice history of the Venetian Republic.

Select Publications

Monographs

2024. Giustizia e violenza delle élites in una repubblica aristocratica. Politica del diritto, tribunali e patriziato nel Cinquecento veneziano (Trezzano sul Naviglio: Unicopli)

Journal Articles

2023. ‘When Peace is not Enough. Marco Michiel and the Council of Ten in early Sixteenth-century Venice: Shifting Judicial Paradigms and Noble Violence’, Acta Histriae, 31/4, 673-688.
2022. ‘Political and Social Aspects of Godparenthood in Early Modern Venice: Spiritual Kinship and Patrician Society’, Journal of Early Modern History, 26/5, 429-455.
2020: ‘Una giustizia criminale concordata. La gestione del bando tra Creta e Venezia all’inizio del XVI secolo’, Le Carte e la Storia, 1, 41-52.
2017. ‘Interrelazioni tra pena del bando, faida e aspetti costituzionali: Venezia e la Terraferma, secoli XV–XVI’, Acta Histriae, 25/2, 261-284.
2016. ‘Il patriziato tra vendetta, ritualità processuale e amministrazione della giustizia. Venezia, inizio XVI secolo’, Acta Histriae, 24/1, 43-62.

Book Chapters

2023. ‘La pena del bando e gli assetti giurisdizionali a Venezia (XV-XVI secolo). Dalla città-stato alla Repubblica, dalla frammentazione all’unità?’, in Livio Antonielli, Stefano Levati, Claudio Povolo, Luca Rossetto (eds), Guardie e Ladri: banditismo e controllo della criminalità in Europa dal medioevo all’età contemporanea (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino Editore), 307-330.
2018. ‘Protagonisti minori. Amministrazione locale e giustizia nella periferia di Cipro a metà XVI secolo’, in Rita Tolomeo, Bruno Crevato Selvaggi (eds.), Venezia e il suo Stato da Mar. Atti del convegno internazionale (Venezia, 9-11 marzo 2017) (Rome-Venice, Società Dalmata di Storia Patria-La Musa Talìa), 73-88
2018. ‘Un bandito bergamasco di inizio Cinquecento: Virgilio dei Passi’, in Giovanni Mometto, Luciano Pezzolo, Luca Rossetto (eds.), Un amabile banchetto. Scritti per Claudio Povolo, (online self-publish), 301-341
‘Borders, Criminal Justice, and International Law: Extradition Agreements in Renaissance Italy’, in Dante Fedele, Randall Lesaffer, Pierre Savy (eds), Avant l’État. Droit international et pluralisme politico-juridique en Europe, XIIe-XVIIe siècle (forthcoming)

Other Research Outputs

Dataset

17/08/2023. ‘Padua Homicide, 1600-1797’ (https://zenodo.org/records/8256784)
17/08/2023. ‘Verona Homicide, 1631-1797’ (https://zenodo.org/records/8256811)

Blog Post

28/06/2023. ‘Uncovering City Peacemakers in the Papal States and Venetian Mainland’, Legal History Miscellany. Posts on the History of Law, Crime, and Justice (https://legalhistorymiscellany.com/2023/06/28/uncovering-city-peacemakers-in-the-papal-states-and-venetian-mainland/)

Teaching

I developed a range of modules that reflect my research and teaching experience. I co-teach a freshman module on early modern continental Europe; at Sophister level I teach a specialist year-long module on the relationships between justice and violence in early modern Europe and a term-long module on the globalization of Catholicism in the 16th century. I also contribute to the team-taught core module in the M.Phil programme in Early Modern History.