Surveillance as a culture of vigilance: the case of Napoleonic Italy

Abstract

This article aims to verify the concept of "culture of vigilance" recently proposed by Arndt Brendecke and Paola Molino in Napoleonic Italy, a context traditionally interpreted in the light of surveillance paradigms. What emerges from the case study of the "capi contrada" established in Vicenza in 1806 is that the Napoleonic police were ultimately compelled to resort to requesting help from individuals belonging to the local communities they wanted to monitor. The "capi contrada" soon became one of the primary sources of information for urban law enforcement. Nevertheless, this collaboration remained strictly tied to the self-interest of the "capi". This kind of "inter-hierarchical"position was not limited to Vicenza, as analogous positions existed in several other cities of the Kingdom of Italy. Thanks to this case study, it is possible to recast the development of state-driven surveillance as one of the many cultures of vigilance that coexisted in Italy at the beginning of the nineteenth century.