iv.), is perhaps still the most valuable.
Italy is to-day the home of criminal anthropology, and not of criminal
anthropology only, but of all the sciences that are connected with crime
and the criminal; the Zanardelli criminal code, which has recently become
law, while by no means entirely satisfactory from the scientific point of
view, shows the influence of the new movement. In this respect Italy
remains true to traditions that are two thousand years old; in the
sixteenth century Italy was still the centre of studies in penal law, and,
to keep to modern times, it is enough to mention the great names of
Beccaria, and, still more recently, Romagnosi. It was under the auspices
of Beltrani-Scalia, well known in connection with prison reform, that the
earlier Italian studies in criminal anthropology were published, from 1870
onwards, in the _Rivista delle discipline carcerarie_, a journal which
continues to publish valuable monographs. In this journal Lombroso
published, in 1872, the results of some investigations which he had made
on prisoners at Padua.
Professor Cesare Lombroso, of Turin, occupies a position of such
importance in the development of criminal anthropology that it is
necessary to have a clear idea of his aims and methods and the nature of
his achievement. Born in 1836, of Venetian parentage, the various and
restless activities of Lombroso’s career are characteristic of the man who
has been all his life opening up new paths of investigation and enlarging
the horizon of human knowledge. At the age of eleven he composed
romances, poems, and tragedies in the manner of Alfieri; at twelve he
developed a passion for classical antiquity, and published two small works
on Roman archæology. At thirteen he was attracted to the study of
sociology from a linguistic point of view (chiefly, we are told, with
relation to Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, and Coptic); at the same time he was
drawn to natural science, being interested especially in the formation of
crystals, and before entering the University he had published two books of
a somewhat evolutionary character. While a student he was led, by the
combined study of ancient religions and of medicine, to the subject of
mental diseases. He began with studies on cretinism in Lombardy and
Liguria, his conclusions being afterwards adopted by Virchow and others.
In the eventful year of 1859 he became first a soldier, and afterwards a
military surgeon. In 1862 he was in charge of the department of mental
diseases at Pavia University, and he initiated there an institution for
the insane, a psychiatric museum, and a series of researches in the
application of exact methods to the study of insanity. This last attempt
was at the time received with general derision; it was said that he was
studying madness with a yard measure; but his methods gradually made
progress, and slowly met with general adoption. After this he made some
important investigations into the causes of pellagra. Called to direct the
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