Verona Italy in the Middle Ages during the time of died between powerful families

The Italian vendettas, or blood-feuds, were a long-standing tradition that most cities and towns tried to break. It was a difficult task since, by Italian standards, a family's honor required that adequate vengeance be sought for a family member's injury or death. The act of revenge placed a similar burden on the newly bereaved family, and the feud was perpetuated. Unfortunately, innocent bystanders could often be killed or injured, and many laws were enacted to reduce the violence of vendettas. Funerals, usually held at night throughout the Middle Ages, were restricted to daylight hours in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The gathering of large family groups and the cover of darkness were too convenient for feuds' perpetuation. Lorenzo de Medici was himself injured, and his brother, Giuliano, was killed in an attack by a rival family in fifteenth-century Florence. The vendettas and family feuds of Italy were well-known throughout Europe. Shakespeare used two feuding families in Verona, the Montecchi and Capelo families, as the Montague and Capulet families' models of his tragic play, Romeo and Juliet.

tending to cause harm