Wanxin Du

My PhD project, "Violence and Justice in Early Modern Siena, 1590-1650", examines violence and the administration of criminal justice in the state of Siena, known as the stato nuovo of the grand duchy of Tuscany, between the late sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. Despite the autonomy granted by the Medici and its legal independence from Florence, Siena’s social and legal history during the grand ducal period has received considerably less scholarly attention than that of its dominant neighbour. Situated within the broader context of the seventeenth-century crisis in Italy, this project investigates shifting rates and patterns of violent crime, including homicide, assaults, brawls, insults, and sexual violence. Drawing on statutes, trial records, petitions, peace instruments, administrative correspondence, and contemporary commentaries, it also examines both judicial and extrajudicial modes of conflict resolution, with the aim of reconstructing the complex networks that linked the grand duke, the governor, the captain of justice, local magistrates, and Sienese individuals in the everyday administration of criminal justice. Through a study of Siena, this research seeks to contribute to ongoing historiographical debates on levels of violence, the socio-economic and cultural roots of criminality, and the nature of early modern justice and state formation, while also reassessing traditional interpretations of absolutism in Tuscany under Medici rule.