Prison “warders”
The Mantellate bell
Leather whip
The Bagni penali
The establishment of criminal asylums
Cesare Lombroso
Plaster cast of the skull of the Calabrian brigand Giuseppe Villella
The skull, the brain and the writings of Giovanni Passannante
Spy-hole
Zinc bowls and mug, wooden spoons |
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Uniform and dress sword for prison inspectors
(c. 1880)
Provenance: Rome, E. Barnabň, 1934
The 19th Century: the development
of the prison system
This itinerary continues with the section devoted to the nineteenth century, which contains studies in criminal anthropology, the techniques of criminology, and episodes of prison history during the nineteenth century, including the establishment of criminal asylums.
Cesare Lombroso’s studies on criminals are represented by the plaster cast of Giuseppe Villella’s skull (in which Lombroso “discovered” the proof of inherited criminal tendencies, the “median occipital fossette”, in 1872) and by the books that are most representative of the studies on criminals conducted not only by Lombroso but also by the famous criminologists Niceforo, Ferri, Sighele and others. In this itinerary historical evidence of social phenomena alternates with crime reports from the nineteenth century. The space devoted to political attacks displays the skull, the brain and the writings of the anarchist from Lucania, Giovanni Passannante, who attempted to assassinate King Umberto I, in Naples, in 1878; the pistol used by Gaetano Bresci to kill King Umberto I in 1900 and the assassin’s personal effects. One part is devoted to the history of the techniques used to identify a criminal, from the Bertillon system, to fingerprinting, the use of photographs and anthropometric data.
Italian prisons in the nineteenth century are reconstructed through prints of warder uniforms, prison relics, prison regulations and furnishings; illustrations and plans of old prisons (Santo Stefano Prison, Regina Coeli Prison in Rome and San Vittore Prison in Milan) show nineteenth-century prison architecture.
The subject of the establishment of criminal asylums, the first of which was set up in Aversa in 1876, is represented by a restraining bed, strait jackets and pictures painted by prisoners.
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