Abstract
The subject of this article is the penal trials, conducted against accused women and concluding with a sentence of capital punishment, at tribunals in Habsburg-ruled Lombardy-Venetia in the period prior to the 1848 Revolutions (the Vormärz era). Having clarified the juridical and institutional context in which the trials took place, the author begins by considering, first of all, different aspects of female criminality and its judicial treatment (e.g. the frequency of crimes, their typology, and the proportions of pardons and sentences carried out). Secondly, the author analyzes the reports of the Lombardo-Venetian Senate of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (that is to say, the third judicial instance in Lombardy-Venetia), which highlight the judges’ predisposition to interpret criminal actions according to parameters linked to the gender of the accused or the victims. In particular, it is evident that women’s sexual conduct played a very important role in the Senate’s decision whether or not to recommend to the Austrian Emperor that a pardon should be granted to the condemned.