LOMBROSO, CESARE. - Psychiatrist and anthropologist, b. in Verona on 6 Nov. 1835, d. in Turin on 9 Oct. 1909. He first occupied himself particularly with studies on cretinism and pellagra, then became (1896) professor of psychiatry at the University of Turin and there, subsequently (1905), full professor of criminal anthropology. He professed materialism and in his last years took an interest in mediumistic phenomena, moving toward spiritualism.
In relation to the materialist cast of his mentality, he sought to see in the criminal man a particular anthropological type determined in his criminal behavior by hereditary physical and psychic anomalies, epilepsy, mental illnesses. This idea did not germinate all at once in his mind, but through long stages and repeated elaborations, from the first edition of his Uomo delinquente (Milan 1876), up to the fifth edition of 1896-97, from which his theories emerged definitively elaborated, arriving at the concept of crime as disease and of the duty of society to treat the criminal, instead of punishing him, leading the offender back to becoming a useful member or, when this was impossible, rendering him harmless through internment in criminal asylums. From these concepts there arose, through the work of E. Ferri and R. Garofalo, the "Positive School of Criminal Law"; with them L. in 1880 founded the Archivio di psichiatria e antropologia criminale, in which there was a whole continuous unfolding of observations, experiments, updatings and developments of his theories. Among his major works should be remembered: Genio e follia (Milan 1864); L'uomo delinquente (ibid. 1876; 5th ed. Turin 1896-97); L'uomo di genio, (6th ed. ibid. 1894); Grafologia (Milan 1895); Genio e degenerazione (Palermo 1898); Ricerche sui fenomeni ipnotici e spiritici (Turin 1909 and new posthumous ed., ibid. 1914).
For the scientific and moral judgment of his theories, v.: ANTROPOLOGIA CRIMINALE; DELINQUENTE.