BETWEEN HISTORY AND POPULAR PRINT IN THE MODERN AGE. PERFETTA, E VERIDICA RELATIONE, DELLI PROCESSI CRIMINALI, ET ESSECUTIONI DELLI MEDESIMI, FATTASI CONTRO LI TRE CONTI, FRANCESCO NADASDI, PIETRO DI ZRIN, E FRANCESCO CRISTOFFORO FRANGEPANI (1671)

The author analyses some of the peculiar features of the so-called gallows literature [ letteratura di patibolo] that was widespread in Europe during Modernity.Composed by printed publications, it became a popular literary genre between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. The authors, who were following implicit rules, were either professional writers or improvised scribblers. The writings were circulating under the names of Relazioni di giustizia (Reports of Justice), of Ragguagli di giustizia ( News on Justice), Historie, etc. These small pamphlets in quarto ( sometimes even in octavo) were distributed by publishers, printers and merchants, sold door to door, peddled by paperboys at mass ceremonies, at fairs or on the very day of a capital execution. In this essay, the analysis of gallows literature's main features is followed by the presentation of two reports of justice, both published in 1671 ( Perfetta e veridica Relazione delli processi criminali et esecuzione delli medi, fattasi contro li tre Conti Francesco Nadasdi, Petar Zrinski e Francesco Christoforo Frangepani), the first kept in Verona's municipal library, the second kept in Venice's San Marco National Library. It recounts the last moments in the lives of three aristocrats, protagonists of the conspiracy against Emperor Leopold I, executed in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt. Zrinski and Frankopan would later become symbols of the struggle for the unity and independence of Croatia.