ACTA HISTRIAE
31, 2023, 4
UDK/UDC 94(05) ISSN 1318-0185ACTA HISTRIAE 31, 2023, 4, pp. 529-838
UDK/UDC 94(05) 
Zgodovinsko društvo za južno Primorsko - Koper
Società storica del Litorale - Capodistria
ACTA HISTRIAE
31, 2023, 4
KOPER 2023
ISSN 1318-0185
e-ISSN 2591-1767
ACTA HISTRIAE • 31 • 2023 • 4
ISSN 1318-0185                UDK/UDC 94(05)             Letnik 31, leto 2023, številka 4
e-ISSN 2591-1767
Darko Darovec
Gorazd Bajc, Furio Bianco (IT), Stuart Carroll (UK), Angel Casals Martinez (ES), 
Alessandro Casellato (IT), Flavij Bonin, Dragica Čeč, Lovorka Čoralić (HR), Darko 
Darovec, Lucien Faggion (FR), Marco Fincardi (IT), Darko Friš, Aleš Maver, Borut 
Klabjan, Urška Lampe, John Martin (USA), Robert Matijašić (HR), Darja Mihelič, 
Edward Muir (USA), Žiga Oman, Jože Pirjevec, Egon Pelikan, Luciano Pezzolo (IT),  
Claudio Povolo (IT), Marijan Premović (MNE), Luca Rossetto (IT), Vida Rožac 
Darovec, Andrej Studen, Boštjan Udovič, Marta Verginella, Salvator Žitko
Lara Petra Skela, Žiga Oman, Urška Lampe, Boštjan Udovič, Veronika Kos
Gorazd Bajc (it.), Lara Petra Skela (angl.)
Žiga Oman (angl., slo.), Gorazd Bajc (it.), Lara Petra Skela (angl.)
Zgodovinsko društvo za južno Primorsko - Koper / Società storica del Litorale - Capodistria© 
/ Inštitut IRRIS za raziskave, razvoj in strategije družbe, kulture in okolja / Institute IRRIS for 
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Younger, 1610 (Wikimedia Commons).
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ACTA HISTRIAE • 31 • 2023 • 4
Volume 31, Koper 2023, issue 4UDK/UDC 94(05) ISSN 1318-0185
e-ISSN 2591-1767
VSEBINA / INDICE GENERALE / CONTENTS
Žiga Oman: Enmity After the Feud: Violence and Its Control 
in Inner Austria, 1500–1750 ...............................................................................................
L’inimicizia dopo la faida: la violenza e il suo controllo nell’Austria Interiore, 1500–1750
Sovražnost po fajdi: nasilje in njegov nadzor v Notranji Avstriji, 1500–1750
Jeppe Büchert Netterstrøm: Feuding and Peacemaking among 
Peasants in Seventeenth-Century Denmark ......................................................................
Faide e riconciliazione tra contadini nella Danimarca del seicento
Fajde in pomiritve med kmeti na Danskem v 17. stoletju
Vicent M. Garés Timor: Los hermanos Colomer de 
Valldigna ¿salteadores o miembros de una facción? ......................................................
The Colomer Brothers from Valldigna: Robbers or Members of a Faction?
Brata Colomer iz Valldigne: roparja ali člana frakcije?
Umberto Cecchinato: Everyday Violence and Natural Disasters 
in Early Modern Treviso. News of Homicides in the 
Libro Macaronico of Zuanne Mestriner (1682–1731) ....................................................
Violenza quotidiana e calamità naturali nella Treviso di età moderna. 
Notizie di omicidi nel Libro macaronico di Zuanne Mestriner (1682–1731)
Nasilje in naravne nesreče v zgodnje novoveškem Trevisu. Novice o 
ubojih v Libro macaronico Zuanneja Mestrinerja (1682–1731)
Alejandro Llinares Planells: The Songs of the Scaffold: Characteristics, 
Creation, and Diffusion of Execution Ballads in 
Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Catalonia .........................................................
Canzoni da patibolo: caratteristiche, creazione e diffusione della 
letteratura dei giustiziati in Catalogna nei secoli XVI e XVII
Pesmi z morišča: značilnosti, nastanek in razširjanje balad 
o usmrtitvah v Kataloniji 16. in 17. stoletja
Andrew Vidali: When Peace is not Enough. Marco Michiel and the Council of Ten 
in Early Sixteenth-Century Venice: Shifting Judicial Paradigms and Noble Violence ...
Quando la pace non è sufficiente. Marco Michiel e il consiglio dei dieci 
nella Venezia di inizio cinquecento: paradigmi giudiziari 
in cambiamento e violenza nobiliare
Ko mir ni dovolj. Marco Michiel in Svet desetih v Benetkah na začetku 
16. stoletja: spreminjanje sodnih paradigem in plemiško nasilje
529
587
627
607
647
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ACTA HISTRIAE • 31 • 2023 • 4
Amanda Madden: The Peace and the Duel; the Peace in the Duel .............................
La pace e il duello; La pace nel duello
Mir in dvoboj; Mir v dvoboju
Matjaž Grahornik: Duelling in the Habsburg Hereditary Lands, 
1600–1750: Between Law and Practice ............................................................................
I duelli nelle terre ereditarie asburgiche, 1600–1750: tra legge e pratica
Dvoboji v habsburških dednih deželah, 1600–1750: med zakoni in prakso
Darko Darovec: The Genesis of Koper Medieval Statutes (1238–1423) ....................
La genesi degli statuti medievali di Capodistria (1238–1423)
Geneza koprskih srednjeveških statutov (1238–1423)
Darja Mihelič: Gli statuti di Capodistria e la vita cittadina ..........................................
Medieval Statutes of Koper and City Life 
Koprski srednjeveški statuti in mestno življenje
Martin Bele: Grad Lušperk in njegovi prebivalci med 13. in 15. stoletjem ................
Il castello di Lušperk e i suoi abitanti tra il duecento e il quattrocento 
Lušperk Castle and its Inhabitans Between the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
POROČILA
RELAZIONI
REPORTS
Veronika Kos: Conference Report on After the Feud? Dispute Settlement 
Between Custom and Law in Early Modern Europe, 21–22 June 2023, 
Maribor & Čentur (online) .................................................................................................
Veronika Kos: Conference Report on Violence and its Control in 
Early Modern Europe, 4–5 July 2023, York ...........................................................
495
707
743
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Prvih osem člankov v tej številki Acta Histriae je nastalo iz prispevkov za mednarodno spletno konferenco After the Feud? Dispute Settlement 
Between Custom and Law in Early Modern Europe. Konferenca je bila del podoktorskega projekta Z6-3223 Reševanje sporov med nižjimi sloji v 
baročni Notranji Avstriji: med fajdo in kazenskim pravom, ki ga je financirala Javna agencija za znanstvenoraziskovalno in inovacijsko dejavnost 
Republike Slovenije (ARIS) v letih 2021–2023, ter raziskovalnega programa P6-0435 Prakse reševanja sporov med običajnim in postavljenim 
pravom na območju današnje Slovenije in sosednjih dežel, ki ga sofinancira ARIS v letih 2022–2027./I primi otto articoli in questo numero di Acta 
Histriae provengono dagli interventi presentati alla conferenza internazionale online After the Feud? Dispute Settlement Between Custom and Law 
in Early Modern Europe. La conferenza faceva parte del progetto di post-dottorato Z6-3223 La risoluzione delle controversie plebee nell'Austria 
Interiore nel periodo barocco: tra faida e diritto penale, finanziato dall'Agenzia slovena per la ricerca e l'innovazione (ARIS) nel periodo 2021–2023 
e dal programma di ricerca P6-0435 Pratiche di risoluzione dei conflitti tra diritto consuetudinario e statutario nell'area dell'attuale Slovenia e dei 
suoi territori limitrofi, cofinanziato dall' ARIS nel periodo 2022–2027./The first eight papers in this issue of Acta Histriae originate from papers for 
the international online conference After the Feud? Dispute Settlement Between Custom and Law in Early Modern Europe. The conference was 
part of the post-doctoral project Z6-3223 Plebeian Dispute Settlement in Baroque Inner Austria: Between Feud and Criminal Law, funded by the 
Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS) in 2021–23, and the research programme P6-0435 Practices of Conflict Resolution Between 
Customary and Statutory Law in the Area of Today’s Slovenia and Its Neighbouring Lands, co-funded by ARIS in 2022–27.
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516
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807
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WHEN PEACE IS NOT ENOUGH. MARCO MICHIEL AND THE 
COUNCIL OF TEN IN EARLY SIXTEENTH-CENTURY VENICE: 
SHIFTING JUDICIAL PARADIGMS AND NOBLE VIOLENCE
Andrew VIDALI
Trinity College Dublin, College Green, Dublin, D02 PN40, Ireland
e-mail: vidalia@tcd.ie
ABSTRACT
The homicide of Vincenzo Molin by Marco Michiel in early 1518 fits into the framework 
of feuds and enmities between Venetian noble families that broke out in the first half of the 
sixteenth century. But these events overlapped with greater political and judicial changes, 
which involved the Council of Ten taking action against elite violence with unprecedented 
intensity. The result of this intersection is an episode with various outstanding features, 
in particular, the early questioning of the juridical-cultural relevance of peace-making as 
essential to ensure the end of judicial exile.
Keywords: violence, early modern Venice, peace-making, history of criminal justice, 
Venetian nobility, Council of Ten
QUANDO LA PACE NON È SUFFICIENTE. MARCO MICHIEL E IL 
CONSIGLIO DEI DIECI NELLA VENEZIA DI INIZIO CINQUECENTO: 
PARADIGMI GIUDIZIARI IN CAMBIAMENTO E VIOLENZA NOBILIARE
SINTESI
L’omicidio di Vincenzo Molin da parte di Marco Michiel si inserisce nel quadro delle 
faide e delle inimicizie tra famiglie nobili veneziane scoppiate nella prima metà del XVI 
secolo. Ma questi eventi si sovrapposero a cambiamenti politici e giudiziari più ampi, 
che videro il Consiglio dei Dieci intervenire contro la violenza delle élite con un’intensità 
senza precedenti. Il risultato di questo intersecarsi è un episodio che presenta diversi 
tratti distintivi, in particolare la prima messa in discussione della rilevanza giuridico-
culturale della pacificazione come elemento essenziale per garantire la fine dell’esilio 
giudiziario.
Parole chiave: Venezia in eta’ moderna, pacificazione, storia della giustizia criminale, 
patriziato veneziano, Consiglio dei Dieci
Received: 2023-07-26                            DOI 10.19233/AH.2023.30
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INTRODUCTION: AN EXCEPTIONAL FORGIVENESS1  
In the 1780 reprint of the “Dizionario Storico-Portatile di tutte le Venete Patrizie 
Famiglie”, the Molin family’s origin was not indicated, but the moral greatness 
of its members was indisputable: a clear example of this virtue was given by “ser 
Luigi Procurator”, whose “son had been killed by ser Marco Michiel, and not only 
did he not rail against him, but with greatness of mind, he instructed another son of 
his, ser Marco, to pardon him and ensure his freedom” (Bettinelli, 1780, 109–110). 
The memory of the death of Vincenzo di Alvise Molin, which caused a great stir at 
the time, surpassed the centuries and is summed up in these few sentences. How-
ever, the undisputed protagonist of this episode of noble violence was undoubtedly 
Marco of Alvise Michiel, despite Alvise Molin’s resounding act of forgiveness that 
earned him mention and citation as an example to follow.
Before going into the details of the story, it is preliminary to contextualise the 
story of Marco Michiel, which unfolds between the 1510s and 1540s. These roughly 
four decades opened with the very serious political and military crisis that followed 
the Venetian military defeat in 1509 against the League of Cambrai, which resulted 
in the loss of most of the Venetian mainland, recovered only in 1517 (Cozzi & 
Knapton, 1986, 89–93; Cozzi, et al., 1992, 9–16). The early 1510s were extremely 
complicated for Venice and its ruling class, which at certain moments understood 
that the very existence of Venice was in danger. In the same years there were also 
a series of rebellions and factional clashes in some Dalmatian towns, which Venice 
struggled to repress precisely because it was busy fighting the Italian and European 
powers in its own backyard (O’Connell, 2009, 142–149).
This political crisis caused severe socio-political stress and lethal violence 
within the Venetian patriciate spiked in the mid to late 1510s and early 1520s, 
while in the first decade of the century there had been no murders among Venetian 
patricians. Losing control of a large part of Italian territories implied the loss of a 
large number of political offices in state administration, leading to the depletion of 
material and immaterial resources for the Venetian patriciate. Material resources 
such as the salaries paid to low and middle-ranking noblemen to occupy minor roles 
in the state administration, salaries that were necessary for those families’ survival, 
and immaterial resources such as the prestige and honour arising from the more 
important administrative roles, which were not paid, and therefore sought after by 
the patricians belonging to the most important Venetian families.2 
The Venetian troops’ entry into Verona in January 1517 marked the almost 
complete fulfilment of the rebuilding of the Mainland state. But the balance had 
1	 This	research	was	financially	supported	by	the	European	Union’s	Horizon	2020	research	and	innovation	
programme	under	the	Marie	Skłodowska-Curie	grant	agreement	No.	101023687	ViolenControl - Violence 
and its Control in Early Modern Venice. This research was originally carried out at the University of York, 
Department of History. The author would also like to thank the reviewers for their valuable feedback.
2	 On	 the	 relationships	between	political	offices	and	 the	Venetian	patriciate’s	 inner	social	structure	Finlay,	
1980; Chojnacki, 2000.
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now been broken, and not only within the Venetian patriciate. As a consequence 
of the League of Cambrai, for instance, Venetian foreign policy changed pro-
foundly, turning to cautiousness and neutrality wherever possible (Cozzi, 1994, 
4). But the outcome that matters most is the crisis due to the reduction of avail-
able resources. This unleashed, regardless of the individual triggers, an internal 
conflict in the Venetian nobility, which resulted in 8 murders of Venetian nobles 
by their peers between 1510 and 1519, with a peak of 5 murders between 1514 
and 1515.3 In this framework, Marco Michiel’s violent retaliation against the 
Molin family took place in 1518.
Before delving into the details, it is also necessary to quickly introduce the pro-
tagonists	 of	 this	 paper,	 the	Michiel	 and	Molin	 noble	 families,	 and	 how	 they	fitted	
into the Venetian nobility. Between June and July 1501, the Venetian government 
acknowledged the virtues of Alvise Michiel, Marco’s father, because he was cruelly 
cut to pieces by the Ottomans while helping to defend the Greek city of Modon, 
leaving	five	children	in	great	misery	(ASVE-SMR,	14,	29v).	To	guarantee	their	suste-
nance, the Senate assigned the son and wife of the dead gentleman the castellania of 
Mestre	for	fifteen	years	and	a	dowry	of	one	thousand	ducats	for	Alvise’s	daughter	for	
her	marriage	or	three	hundred	if	she	decided	to	enter	a	convent.	This	premise	clarifies	
3 On the relationship between environment and violence Rose, 2019, 156–180.
Fig. 1. Venetian patricians killed by their peers (Diari, 3–40; ASVE-AV, 3659–3665; 
ASVE-CDMR, 28–30; ASVE-CDCR, 1–3).  
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the	difficulty	that	Marco	Michiel’s	family,	part	of	the	San	Geminiano	branch,	faced	
at the beginning of the sixteenth century (Barbaro, 21, 97). On the other side is a 
parental group that experienced remarkable political fortune: both Alvise and Marco, 
members of the Molin d’Oro branch, achieved the prestigious title of Procuratore di 
San Marco (Barbaro, 21, 235–236).4
This case study fits into a recent reassessment of noble violence committed by 
members of the Venetian ruling class, which is increasingly being framed in terms 
of feuds and enmities. Many scholars have previously held that vendetta was not 
a shared practice among Venetian patricians, implicitly setting the lagoon nobility 
apart from the rest of the pre-modern elite from an anthropological point of view. 
According to such views, it was the Venetian institutions that brought about this 
socio-cultural hiatus, as they had unparalleled success in reducing internal political 
violence by implementing a system of distribution of offices and privileges. The 
qualitative leap is marked – according to this thesis – by the transformation that 
took place between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 
Not only political changes contributed to this outcome but also psychological ones; 
these favoured the principle of the common good over private interests and the build-
ing	of	a	broad	political	consensus,	putting	an	end	to	internal	conflicts.	This	was	also	
achieved	through	a	bitter	fight	against	factionalism	and	the	different	weight	given,	by	
the courts, to those forms of insult that could trigger a violent reaction (Muir, 1993, 
50–53). The peculiarity of the Venetian patriciate, who allegedly did not share the 
tenets of honour, has been emphasised again more recently (Muir, 2013, 492).
In contrast, Claudio Povolo investigated and reported on cases of violent clashes 
between Venetian noble families involving, for instance, the Trevisan, Bon, Va-
lier, and Calergi (Povolo, 2018; 2020). These feuds took place between the late 
sixteenth and early seventeenth century, at a time when the relationship between 
legal institutions and the patterns of violence was being reshaped, especially in the 
Venetian Republic (Povolo, 2015). The dispute that opposed Michiel and Molin 
unfolded, however, between the early and mid-sixteenth century. The political and 
legal context surrounding this enmity was quite different from that of the turn of 
the century. Future research will then have to bridge these two periods, as well 
as expand research to other ones, for instance the mid-seventeenth century or the 
second half of the fifteenth century, after the resolution of the Foscari affair.
THE FIRST CONVICTION
The nobleman from ca’ Michiel appears in the trial records of the Council of 
Ten in February 1516 due to his strong feelings, deemed immoral, which turned 
into violent retaliation. The Ten summoned him to defend himself against the 
charges of threatening and assaulting a young man with weapons with the purpose 
4 According to the writer, the title of Procuratore was, in a sense, handed down from father to son. 
On this prestigious title, second only to the one of Doge, Chambers, 1997; Metlica, 2021.
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of sodomizing him (ASVE-CDCR, 2, 162r; ASVE-CDP, 1, 141). Marin Sanudo’s 
diaries provide a better picture of what happened: Marco Michiel cut off Giovanni 
Malipiero’s robe in Santa Maria Formosa square for reasons of love and jealousy 
towards Domenico Molin of Alvise (Diari, 21, 514). Despite Marco Michiel’s 
wicked intentions, it should be noted that no blood was spilled, and no actual act of 
sexual violence took place. 
This aggression against Giovanni Malipiero is described by Marin Sanudo as 
a manifestation of jealousy by Marco Michiel. This feeling embodied the expres-
sion of male competition on the level of sexual honour and took part in building 
ideas of masculinity, and affected family life (Breitenberg, 1993; Barclay, 2017, 
218–219). At the same time, this emotion is often used to negatively characterise 
the ‘Muslim Other’ in early modern European literature (Calefas-Strebelle, 2017, 
302). The quintessentially jealous Moor is, not surprisingly, Othello, anxious over 
Desdemona’s fidelity (Olson, 2015). 
In Marco Michiel’ case, however, such jealousy could not be socially ac-
cepted as it was tainted by its overlapping with the crime of attempted sodomy. 
Historians of emotions showed how negative feelings such as anger, jealousy, 
and violence were part of homoerotic relations and not just heterosexuals 
(Grossi, 2021, 139) and we can arguably frame the aggression towards Malipi-
ero in this sense, even if it did not lead to an actual sodomitic act. Nevertheless, 
it is also important to not underestimate the implications of this assault in terms 
of humiliation and shame at being associated with sodomy.
As in the rest of Renaissance Europe, sodomy carried a strong clout not only in 
social and judicial terms but also political: the prejudices associated with this im-
moral sexual conduct affected reputation, and this also applied to Venetian society 
and the class at its top, the patriciate. Even when Venice was renowned for its 
toleration and libertinism, charges of sodomy could ruin the political aspirations 
of noblemen belonging to even the most important and prestigious families. This 
is what happened to Alvise V Sebastiano Mocenigo, a candidate to become Doge 
in 1789. But he had to renounce because of the accusations of infamy against him, 
linked to a previous prison sentence for sodomy (Scaramella, 2021).
At any rate, Marco Michiel did not show up and was sentenced in contumacy 
to fifteen years’ banishment from Venice and the lagoon area, the Dogado, while 
a milder sentence of six years’ exile was rejected (ASVE-CDCR, 2, 163v). This 
first conviction brings forth the institutional protagonist of the Michiel-Molino 
affair, namely the Council of Ten. This court had significant political power, which 
increased progressively towards the end of the fifteenth century and took a further 
leap during the first half of the sixteenth century, as a consequence of the politi-
cal and military crisis affecting Venice (Conzato, 2008; 2011). Its criminal justice 
jurisdiction also expanded considerably in the first decades of the sixteenth century. 
Initially, when the Ten were established at the beginning of the fourteenth 
century, it had criminal jurisdiction in cases where the very life of the Venetian 
Commune and then Republic was at risk, as in the case of the Bajamonte Tiepolo 
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and Doge Falier conspiracies, events that marked the birth and definitive affirma-
tion of this court inside the lagoon (Ruggiero, 1997, 399–402). The Ten had a 
peculiar trial rituality, which guaranteed no lawyer for the defendant and almost no 
room for legal defence (Andreato, 2007; Girardello, 2007). The sentences imposed 
by this court were then among the most severe and not open to appeal. As we shall 
see at the end of Marco Michiel’s story, the Council of Ten began to interfere in the 
management of enmities between Venetian noble families.
But the fact that it was the Council of Ten that dealt with Marco Michiel’s attack 
on Giovanni Malipiero is actually not unexpected. The Ten had already extended 
their jurisdiction over cases of sodomy for some time (Ruggiero, 1985, 109–145) 
and since Marco’s attack was aimed at this, at least according to the judicial ac-
count of the events, it is not surprising that the Ten claimed jurisdiction over it. 
The punishment was significant, as it mirrored the punitive justice approach of the 
Council of Ten, but it was also proportionate to the social alarm sparked by a crime 
that, at that time, would certainly have led to a death sentence had it been fully 
perpetrated. Marco Michiel should have stayed away from Venice for a long time to 
avoid worsening an already compromised condition. 
However, he tried to exploit the precarious political and financial situation of 
the Republic to seek a pardon, just as many other patricians did during those years 
of the Italian Wars.5 In early December 1516, the Ten replied to Marco’s request to 
be acquitted from his long exile and to be allowed to return home. Marco Michiel 
offered a 200 ducats loan, also as a symbol of the same loyalty to the Republic 
shown by his father so many years before. In return, he asked for absolution “with 
the peace and consent” of the offended party (ASVE-CDMF, 38, 186). But he was 
denied absolution. 
The good intentions to reconcile with Giovanni Malipiero were not enough to 
secure his freedom, nor was the sum proposed, which might have been considered 
too low. Other hypotheses to consider are that too little time had passed since the 
conviction and the possible objections not so much from the Malipiero family but 
more from the family members of Domenico Molin, Marco Michiel’s beloved. As we 
are about to see, not all patricians belonging to the Molin d’Oro branch wished for 
Marco Michiel’s absolution. As a consequence, Domenico Molin became the target of 
Marco’s	retaliation,	which	took	place	in	late	January	1518,	changing	this	affair	from	a	
question of unrequited attraction to a violent dispute between noble families.
VIOLENCE OUT OF PROPORTION AND UNCONVENTIONAL SUMMONS 
Marin Sanudo describes how, disguised with a mask, Marco Michiel ambushed 
Domenico Molin and his cousin Vincenzo Molin, son of Alvise Procuratore, near 
the church of San Zulian, wounding both, but putting Vincenzo’s life at risk (Diari, 
5 Some examples of negotiation between the Council of Ten and Venetian nobles living in both Venice and 
Crete in Vidali, 2020.
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25, 217). Girolamo Molin, Domenico’s brother, who was also present, managed to 
escape. A fight with some servants from ca’ Molino ensued, but the masked person 
defended himself with great skill and managed to escape. A convulsive manhunt 
followed and, while the search continued, the Council of Ten announced that “for 
the atrocity of the premeditated and abhorrent crime committed today”, of which 
“by very clear evidence it is understood that the perpetrator was Marco Michiel of 
the late Alvise of the late Maffio”, a three thousand lira bounty was issued as well 
as harsh punishments for those who would have sheltered or helped him in any 
way (ASVE-CDCR, 2, 212v). Impunity would have been granted to whomever had 
killed Marco Michiel in the manhunt.
Marin Sanudo offers further insights that do not transpire from official sources 
and confirm some assumptions made earlier. In particular, he offered two possible 
explanations shared by the Venetian public for this aggression: firstly, Vincenzo 
Molin had urged his father Alvise, the powerful Procurator of St Mark, to have 
Michiel outlawed as a consequence of the first attack on Giovanni Malipiero, as in 
fact happened; secondly, Marco Michiel wanted revenge on Alvise Molin because 
the latter had promised to help the former get absolution by lending him money to 
offer to the Venetian Signoria, but he did not keep his word (Diari, 25, 219).
In light of the diarist’s interpretation of events, it is possible to reconsider the 
earlier rejected pardon request. Alvise Molin had failed to give his financial and, 
consequently, political aid to Marco Michiel. The fact that Alvise Molin had in 
any case entered into negotiations with Marco and probably his relatives was an 
important sign, although they failed. This was perhaps because the family itself 
was not united and not everyone shared Alvise’s intention to settle the quarrel with 
the Michiel family: evidence of this is the conduct of Vicenzo Molino, Alvise’s son 
and cousin of Domenico, who had instead put pressure on his father and probably 
opposed Marco Michiel’s absolution. 
A few days later, as he was the main suspect in the malicious assault on Do-
menico and Vincenzo Molin, Marco Michiel was summoned to defend himself 
against the charges and, as he had already been banished from Venice and Dogado, 
he was granted safe-conduct to appear (ASVE-CDCR, 2, 212v; ASVE-CDP, 1, 
185). Meanwhile, the hunt continued, while Vicenzo Molin died. The diarist’s 
pages express in a very accurate manner the sense of the shock caused by Marco 
Michiel’s revenge and the unease pervading the city (Diari, 25, 230–231). To grasp 
the distress felt within the patrician class, one must bear in mind that Michiel’s 
retaliation was carried out in a way that exceeded the threshold of tolerance that 
noble violence enjoyed.
The attack was considered heinous because it took place while the nobleman was 
already serving a harsh sentence for another serious crime and because of the circum-
stances: the disguise and the ambush left no doubt as to premeditation and, in fact, 
the gravity of the episode was expressed in the severity of the sentence. The sentence 
in absentia at the beginning of February 1518 involved a lifetime exile not only from 
Venice, but also from all Venetian territories on both land and sea, and from all ships 
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flying	the	Venetian	flag.	If	captured,	the	patrician	would	have	been	led	by	horsetail	
from Santa Croce to San Zulian, the place of the ambush, where his right hand would 
have	been	chopped	off,	to	be	then	led	between	the	two	columns	at	St	Mark’s	Square.	
Here he would be “descopato”, that is, killed with a strong blow to the nape, then 
quartered, and his body parts hung on the gallows (ASVE-CDCR, 2, 213r).6
Marin Sanudo’s diaries show that the nobleman managed to escape and take 
refuge outside the Serenissima, as his presence is attested in Bologna in the sec-
ond half of the 1520s (Diari, 40, 726). For more news on the gentleman, we must 
wait until 1529, when Venice attempted to seize the Apulian ports again (Cozzi, 
et al., 1992, 12–14). On this occasion, the military skills of the exiled patrician 
earned him the esteem and support of several people at the top of the military 
hierarchies, both foreign and Venetian. 
At the nobleman’s request, these figures pleaded with the Signoria, listing 
Marco Michiel’s merits and valour shown in battle, to grant him a safe-conduct. 
His numerous deeds for the benefit of the Venetian state were attested in the let-
ters of the late Odet de Foix, Vicomte de Lautrec,7 and of lord Camillo Orsini as 
well as some other Venetian noblemen, who recalled the death of Marco’s father 
at the Ottoman siege of Modon (ASVE-CDCF, 6, 1529 Die 10 Augusti in Consilio 
X, with attachments).
Despite the high-ranking support that the banned patrician could display, the 
decision of the Ten to confront the relatives of the dead before making any deci-
sions was much more significant:
Summoned to the presence of the Most Excellent Lords Heads of the Most 
Illustrious Council of Ten, the noble men, Ser Marco da Molin Procurator of 
the late Ser Nicolo and Ser Andrea da Molin of the late Ser Marin, and asked 
if they had made peace and forgiven all wrongdoing by the noble man Ser 
Marco Michiel. They replied that they have, and they will be very pleased if he 
is granted what he asked for, and so it has been noted by order and command-
ment of the most excellent Lord Heads (ASVE-CDCF, 6, 1529 Die 10 Augusti 
in Consilio X, first attachment).
The father of the murdered and the brother of the wounded man had given their 
approval to Marco Michiel’s request for a five-year safe-conduct to live anywhere 
in the dominion, with the notable exception of Venice and the Dogado. The reason 
for summoning the members of the Molin family is probably to be found in the 
fact that peace, although achieved, had not been formalised in a notarial deed, 
but it remains unclear why Marco Michiel did not specify this in his supplication. 
Perhaps the influential recommendations played a role in this. Nevertheless, the 
pardon was granted at the end of September.
6 On quartering in Venice as part of the capital punishment ritual, Ruggiero, 1994.
7 On him, Woodcock, 2015.
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It is worth noting that when assessing this first supplication, the crime commit-
ted in 1516, i.e., the assault to sodomise Giovanni Malipiero, was completely set 
aside in light of the homicide of Vincenzo Molin and the wounding of Domenico 
Molin. During this first negotiation between the Ten and Marco Michiel the 15-year 
sentence issued in 1516 was still in place, however, it was not taken into account 
at all. Not only that, the Malipiero themselves had not been considered in either 
Marco Michiel’ pardon requests or by the Council of Ten, which summoned only 
the Molin family members. This disregard for the very first sentence against Marco 
Michiel can be seen as proof that the case had taken on a different significance after 
the ambush and that the resulting feud had encompassed the armed aggression on 
Malipiero.
Two years later, in 1531, further evidence of the Venetian gentleman’s bravery 
accompanied a new petition asking for a much longer safe-conduct, one that would 
last for the rest of Marco Michiel’s life. The arguments largely followed those 
already advanced two years earlier, with minor differences (ASVE-CDCF, 7, 1531 
die 4 Septembris, with attachments). The Heads of the Council of Ten again sum-
moned some Molino family members but on this occasion in place of Alvise, who 
had in the meanwhile passed away, his son Marco was called.
Marco had become Procurator of St Mark in place of his late father. In addition 
to him, Andrea of Marino came again to confirm the reconciliation between the 
family groups. Following on from 1529, the two noblemen declared their consent to 
granting the pardon (ASVE-CDCF, 7, 1531 die 4 Septembris, first attachment). The 
new petition, granted in mid-September 1531, kept the ban on the entire lagoon ter-
ritory, from Grado to Cavarzere, as had already been put forward two years earlier.
FATHERLY MEMORIES
Marco Michiel finally attempted to exploit the next politically difficult moment 
for the Republic, that is, the conflict at the end of the 1530s with the Ottomans 
(Cozzi, 1994, 33–34), to secure the lifting of the remaining ban from Venice and 
Dogado, at a time when the criteria for a pardon had been softened.8 An initial 
offer of three hundred ducats, voted at the end of October 1539, did not obtain 
enough votes to be approved (ASVE-CDCO, 13, 95v). At the end of September 
1540, however, a further request for absolution was rejected. On this last occasion, 
the court read the letters attesting to his merits and the statement by Marco Molin, 
Procurator (ASVE-CDCR, 5, 168r).
After recalling the pardon already granted to him in 1531, Marco Michiel de-
clared that he continued to serve the Venetian Signoria, as he had been sent by the 
Senate to the custody of Zadar in 1537 (ASVE-CDCF, 9, 1540 Die 22 Septembris 
in Consilio X, with attachments). The nobleman had in fact been chosen by ballot, 
8 Cf. some measures taken by the Council of Ten in ASVE-CDCO, 12, 197v, 212v–213r, 224r–v; 
ASVE-CDCO, 13, 5v, 22v, 26 r, 44 v, 50 v, 54r, 98 r. 
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along with nine other patricians, to go and defend the city and territory of Zadar, and 
each of them was entrusted with the command of a group of soldiers (ASVE-SMR, 
24, 137v–138r, 140v–141r). His military actions were praised by the commander, 
Camillo Orsini, and by the Venetian nobleman Giovanni Vitturi, captain-general in 
the Adriatic Sea, both of whom already recommended Marco Michiel in the 1529 
and 1531 pleas (ASVE-CDCF, 9, 1540 Die 22 Septembris in Consilio X, second 
and third attachments).
Marco Michiel believed he had earned a full release after more than twenty 
years of exile from his homeland and he also offered 150 ducats as a gift. The 
parallels with the previous pardon requests don’t stop there: on this occasion too, 
the family members of the victims of Marco Michiel’s vengeance were heard by the 
Ten before voting. Marco Molin expressed again his consent to any pardon that the 
Ten would agree to Marco Michiel. In particular, Marco Molin said that this is what 
his late father wanted and even wrote so in his last will (ASVE-CDCF, 9, 1540 Die 
22 Septembris in Consilio X, first attachment).
Marco of Alvise Molin approved once again Marco Michiel’s pardon, who 
had killed his brother Vincenzo and wounded his cousin Domenico. Above all, he 
declared his intention to follow the pledge left to him in his father’s will. Between 
1515 and 1522, Alvise di Nicolò Molin had changed his last will several times, 
reflecting the vast fortunes his family had at its disposal (ASVE-NT, 208, 11r–14v). 
The first amendment occurred in March 1518 because an unforeseen event had 
recently occurred, the death of his son Vincenzo. Alvise wanted to make explicit 
how his son died and what his last wish was, promptly emulated by the testator:
Having seemed to God to call to Himself my dearest and most beloved son 
Vicenzo, not from natural death but from a violent one, for he, most innocent, 
had been horribly killed without cause by one Marcho Michiel, a facinorous 
man of ill fortune, to whom the poor man granted forgiveness and I too have 
done the same, whose death has taken away all my good and hope (ASVE-
NT, 208, 11v–12r).
Alvise’s last will calls into question the complex relationship between 
memory, conflict, and forgiveness.9 The memory of violence feeds on the word, 
either orally or in written form, as is evident with regard to the recollection 
of the bloody events of the 1511 Friulan revolt (Casella, 2008). It was not 
only through words that the memory of family feuds was passed on: stone was 
just as effective. In sixteenth-century France, small monuments, burial chapels, 
crosses and more were built at the expense of the murderers to commemorate 
their victims (Carroll, 2003, 108–109). 
We cannot know why a full acquittal was not granted to Marco Michiel, de-
spite the new services valiantly rendered to the Republic and attested to by those 
9 On this topic, De Vincentiis, 2004; 2009. 
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we can consider to be Michiel’s greatest sponsors, namely Camillo Orsini and 
Giovanni Vitturi. Perhaps the Ten believed that a 150-ducat gift was insufficient 
to replenish the state’s coffers after the war effort, which in any case ended in 
1540; perhaps the Molin family informally opposed the return of the nobleman 
to Venice, although on paper they said to hold no grudge against him. There is a 
chance that the concession of peace was in fact apparent, even though we must 
factor the forgiveness expressed by the victim’s father in his last will and that the 
Molin family members could have deliberately said that they did not want Marco 
Michiel to be pardoned. After all, the Ten were well-known for the secrecy of 
their work and decisions (Conzato, 2008).
Another possible explanation why the Venetian patrician failed to be com-
pletely acquitted is that Marco Michiel’s return to Venice would have caused 
embarrassment for the family of the victim, something that the Ten wanted 
to avoid. However, other similarly severe murder cases ended with the killer 
returning to the lagoon: in March 1535, the nobleman Lorenzo of Girolamo 
Bembo got killed in a fashion deemed atrocious. The case was taken up by the 
Ten who identified the culprit in another patrician, Zaccaria of Marco Gabriel, 
who was sentenced within the end of the year to a fifteen-year confinement in 
Koper/Capodistria (ASVE-CDCR, 5, 51v, 52v–53v, 70v). 
Only four years later, in 1539, Marco Gabriel succeeded, albeit laboriously, in 
negotiating the complete release of his son without peace having been achieved 
as he sought instead to buy his son’s freedom with a substantial pecuniary offer 
(ASVE-CDCO, 13, 18r, 20r, 22v). So being fully acquitted from heinous murder 
was possible even without reconciliation between the parties. This should make 
us wonder even more why one year later, in 1540, the Ten did not fully pardon 
Marco Michiel once again. 
CONCLUSION
As the nobleman probably lost hope of obtaining full absolution, Marco Michiel 
at least attempted to once again play the card of his father’s actions to secure the 
financial benefits he had lost when he was first outlawed. At the end of July 1546, 
the Ten voted on the nobleman’s petition to recover the castellania of Mestre for 
three regiments, so that he could support himself financially. In fact, Marco, who 
had done much for the benefit of the Republic, was the only one left of Alvise 
Michiel’s sons, and his mother was also now deceased. The Council, however, was 
split in half and the plea was not granted (ASVE-CDCO, 17, 163r).
Regardless of the conclusion of Marco Michiel’s events, what is important is 
the contribution this story makes to the relations between enmities among Vene-
tian noble families and the criminal justice system during the turbulent period 
of the Italian Wars. It is indeed not improper to frame the events outlined as a 
feud between Venetian patrician households, and this can be inferred by the stress 
placed on reconciliation by both Marco Michiel and the Council of Ten: despite 
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the Venetian nobleman did not include information about any attempts to broker 
peace with the Molin d’Oro family, in his first pardon request he admitted – albeit 
indirectly – that he harmed Giovanni Malipiero’s honour with his shameful deeds. 
Hence Marco Michiel’s self-imposed condition to get absolution only with their 
peace and consent. A similar emphasis can be trace in the Ten’s summons of the 
Molin family members to certify that no hatred and enmity existed between the 
Michiel and Molin.
The perseverance with which the Ten refused to allow him to rejoin the patri-
cian community has the character of uniqueness, even though the crime he had 
committed was tremendous and the sentence inflicted was just as heavy. Waiving 
a sentence of banishment but keeping the interdiction from the territory where 
the crime had taken place and the victim’s relatives lived was an accommodation 
between the absence of peace among the parties and the pressure to absolve a con-
victed for different reasons – political, financial, or otherwise. This compromise 
had, in fact, been employed by the Council of Ten in relation to other areas of the 
Venetian Republic, particularly in early sixteenth-century Crete (Vidali, 2020, 
46–47). In general, forbidding the offender not to reside where the crime had 
taken place reflected the logic of driving the offender away to ease a truce and, 
eventually, reconciliation. This is the rationale that shaped the customary features 
of outlawry (Smail, 2003, 172–173). 
However, this requirement was evidently redundant in the case of Marco 
Michiel, given the repeated confirmation by members of the Molin family that 
they granted pardon and reconciled with him. So why was peace not enough to 
let the Venetian nobleman make his return to the lagoon? If even the goodwill of 
the victim’s relatives was not sufficient, then these events can be framed as an 
early sign of a process that was still in its early stages; a shift that would lead, 
in the long run, to the socio-cultural and juridical de-legitimation of vengeance 
and enmity. This is not to say that peace ceased to play a fundamental role in the 
criminal justice systems of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italian states. There 
is evidence to the contrary.10
Altogether, the most recent historical research proved how the problem of 
aristocratic violence ultimately declined significantly in central and northern 
Italy in the first half of the eighteenth century, including the Republic of Venice. 
Political, social, and cultural changes contributed to their definitive disqualifi-
cation, as well as that of the associated “scienza cavalleresca” (Carroll, 2023, 
137–140). Peace either within or outside the trial did not disappear, but other 
logics guided eighteenth-century Italian justice (Bellabarba, 2008, 159–178). The 
case of Marco Michiel should then be understood as one of the first seeds of a 
process not necessarily deliberate in the first decades of the sixteenth century, 
which would only take a more mature form in the following centuries. 
10 An example in Edigati, 2008.
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KO MIR NI DOVOLJ. MARCO MICHIEL IN SVET DESETIH V BENETKAH 
NA	ZAČETKU	16.	STOLETJA:	SPREMINJANJE	SODNIH	PARADIGEM	IN	
PLEMIŠKO NASILJE
Andrew VIDALI
Trinity College Dublin, College Green, Dublin, D02 PN40, Irska
e-mail: vidalia@tcd.ie
POVZETEK
Uboj Vincenza Molina, ki ga je januarja 1518 zagrešil Marco Michiel, sodi 
v okvir fajd in sovražnosti med beneškimi plemiškimi družinami, ki so izbruh-
nile v prvi polovici 16. stoletja. Vendar se je to v danem primeru zgodilo na 
način, zaradi katerega je bilo nasilje v očeh beneške družbe in njenih institucij 
nesprejemljivo: iz zasede, ko je bil plemič že izobčen. Kljub temu so sorodniki 
žrtve z Marcom Michielom sklenili mir in podprli njegove prošnje, da se vrne 
v domovino. Toda ti dogodki so se prekrivali z večjimi političnimi in sodnimi 
spremembami, v okviru katerih je Svet desetih z neprimerljivo večjo intenzivno-
stjo ukrepal proti nasilju elit. Rezultat tega presečišča je epizoda z različnimi 
izjemnimi značilnostmi. Svet desetih je patricija strogo kaznoval, vendar to ni 
bila neka izjema. Nenavadno je bilo to, da je sodišče le delno sprejelo prošnje 
izgnanega patricija in mu nikoli ni dovolilo vrnitve v Benetke, temveč mu je 
dovolilo, da živi na drugih ozemljih republike. To se je zgodilo kljub sklenitvi 
miru. Z navzkrižnim pregledom sodnih odločb, prošenj in sodobnih dnevnikov 
ta članek sestavlja celovito sliko dogodkov Marca Michiela v širšem političnem 
in sodnem kontekstu. Epizoda je nato oblikovana kot zgodnje preizpraševanje 
pravno-kulturnega pomena sklepanja miru kot bistvenega za zagotavljanje 
koristi reševanja sporov, zlasti konca sodnega izgona.
Ključne besede: nasilje, zgodnje novoveške Benetke, sklepanje miru, zgodovina 
kazenskega prava, beneško plemstvo, Svet desetih
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