In the later years of the sixteenth century the Venetian government fought a losing battle against the violence of gangs on the Terraferma. It was a time when the sound of a name such as Francesco Bertazuolo or Geronimo Tadino struck terror into the hearts of the population for miles around. The problem was no doubt endemic: the history of legal and judicial legislation, amply told by Gaetano Cozzi and Claudio Povolo, suggests its persistent presence before and after the years considered here. Moreover, nurtured as they are on I promessi sposi, all Italians will know this was not a problem uniquely associated with the republic. Yet this period produced on Venetian territory its own peculiar examples of villainy.

Even so, from time to time there were optimistic reports of peaceful intermissions, often associated with the imposition of a ban against the carrying of arms. For example, the Venetian rector at Udine in the summer of 1569 asked for an extension of such a ban, which over the previous months had got rid of violent quarrelling and murder under his jurisdiction. He noticed the additional, apparently consequential, advantage of an absence of the foreign bravoes who had previously supported the noble factions. In Brescia a law against bearing wheel-lock arquebuses was imposed by Giacomo Soranzo in 1574.