Antonio Pigliaru : Barbagian Vendetta as a Legal System

This chapter focuses on the most famous book by the Italian legal philosopher Antonio Pigliaru, La vendetta barbaricina come ordinamento giuridico, first published in 1959. The book collects Pigliaru’s investigations on the Barbagian code and describes the social dynamics of an ancestral folk law that emerged in the territory of Barbagia, located in a central area of Sardinia, on the Gennargentu chain. Pigliaru observes a persistent and widespread practice of vendetta in Barbagia and places it within the set of legal systems that virtually coexist with the state. An empirical analysis of the behavior of Sardinian shepherds, conducted through interviews, confirms the original hypothesis that, in that community, revenge is not an instinct but an institution. Pigliaru proposed a technical legal codification, where he formalized the unwritten Barbagian folk law. The work of Pigliaru is inspiring for studies on the interaction between state law and folk law and the philosophical analysis of vendetta.