Professor who first encouraged study of criminal mind
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| Cesare Lombroso changed the way the world thought about criminals |
Cesare Lombroso, a university professor often referred to as
‘the father of criminology’ was born on this day in 1835 in Verona.
Although many of his views are no longer held to be correct,
he was the first to establish the validity of scientific study of the criminal
mind, paving the way for a generation of psychiatrists and psychologists to
create a greater understanding of criminal behaviour.
In broad terms, Lombroso's theory was that criminals could
be distinguished from law-abiding people by multiple physical characteristics,
which he contended were throwbacks to primitive, even subhuman ancestors, which
brought with them throwbacks to primitive behaviour that went against the rules
and expectations of modern civilized society.
Through years of postmortem examinations and comparative
studies of criminals, the mentally disturbed and normal non-criminal
individuals, Lombroso formed the belief that ‘born criminals’ could be identified by
such features as the angle of their forehead, the size of their ears, a lack of
symmetry in the face or even arms of excessive length. He even argued that
certain characteristics – he called them “stigmata” – were common to particular
types of offenders.
He also believed that criminals had less sensitivity to
pain, sharper vision, a lack of normal morals, were more vain, vindictive and
cruel, although he did not suggest that there was no prospect of anyone born
with “stigmata” leading a blameless life.
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| Lombroso at work at the University of Pavia |
Indeed, he proposed reforms to the Italian penal system that
included more humane and constructive treatment of convicts through the use of
work programmes intended to make them more productive members of society.
Lombroso’s theories were initially widely influential in
Europe and the United States, even though over time the idea that criminal
behaviour had hereditary causes was largely rejected in favour of environmental
factors, and the idea that someone could be born a criminal was established as
implausible.
At the time, however, Lambroso was a respected figure. Born
into a wealthy Jewish family in Verona, descended from a long line of rabbis, Lombroso
studied at the universities of Padua, Vienna, and Paris.
From 1862 until 1876 he was a professor of psychiatry at the
University of Pavia and of forensic medicine and hygiene (1876), psychiatry
(1896) and criminal anthropology (1906) at the University of Turin. He was also
the director of a mental asylum in Pesaro.
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| The monument to Lombroso in his home town of Verona |
He published books entitled L’uomo delinquente (The Criminal
Man; 1876) and Le Crime, causes et remèdes (Crime, Its Causes and Remedies;
1899).
In addition to his work in the field of criminology,
Lambroso devoted much time to studying his belief that genius was closely
related to madness. He wrote a book in
1889, The Man of Genius, in which he argued that artistic genius was a form of
hereditary insanity and in which he claimed that, in his exploration of
geniuses descending into madness, he could find only six men who exhibited no
tendencies towards madness - Galileo, Da Vinci, Voltaire, Machiavelli,
Michelangelo, and Darwin – but that Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, Mozart and
Dante all displayed what he called "degenerate symptoms".
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| The Roman amphitheatre in Verona |
Travel tip:
Verona, Lombroso’s home town – under Austrian rule at the time of his birth – is
now the third largest city in the northeast of Italy, with a population across
its whole urban area of more than 700,000. Famous now for its wealth of tourist
attractions, of which the Roman amphitheatre known the world over as L’Arena di
Verona is just one, the city was also
the setting for three plays by Shakespeare – one of those geniuses Lambroso
believed sat on the cusp of madness.
Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the
Shrew all had Verona as their backdrop, although it is unknown whether the
English playwright ever actually set foot in the city. There is a monument to Cesare Lombroso in a park also named after him on the banks of the Adige river opposite the Cathedral of Santa Maria Matricolare.
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| The Courtyard of the Statues inside the University of Pavia |
Travel tip:
Situated only 35km (22 miles) from Milan, Pavia has the
advantages of close proximity to all the services and opportunities on offer in
northern Italy’s principal city yet itself offers a calmer way of life amid its
ancient streets and elegant buildings, which remain as a legacy of its stature
as the one-time capital of the Lombardy region. It is a city of rich cultural
heritage with 19 museums, four public libraries, four cinemas and theatres, two
schools of music arts and a music conservatory. Its university, home to 24,000
students, was founded in 1361 and now has 13 faculties.
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