Alienists on Trial: Conflict and Convergence between Psychiatry and Law (1876–1913)

For a history of science, especially of medicine, which focuses on the problematic relation between the normal and the pathological, see the important study of Canguilhem G. , Le normal et le pathologique (Paris, 1966).

The first unified Italian penal code was established on 31 December 1889. On the Tuscan penal code, in comparison with the one applied in the rest of Italy, concerning the criteria for non-imputability in the case of insantiy, see Guarnieri P. , L'ammazzabambini: Legge e scienza in un processo toscano di fine Ottocento (Turin, 1988, “Microstorie”), especially ch. 3 (Engl. trans., Polity Press, forthcoming).

The quotation is in Vincenzo Verzeni lo sventratore di donne (Bergamo, 1879), Processi celebri contemporanei italiani e stranieri, collected and published by attorneys Oscar Pio and Nicola Argenti (Naples, 1889), 45–117, p. 88. For an account of the event that aroused such morbid curiosity, see the booklet published by the editor of popular books Salani in the “Collezione di libretti illustrati”, Vincenzo Verzeni detto lo Strangolatore di donne, condannato ai lavori forzati a vita (Florence, [1885]). As an exemplary clinical case, Penta P. , I pervertimenti sessuali nell'uomo e V. Verzeni strangolatore di donne: Studio biologico (Naples, 1893).

See Lombroso C. , La perizia psichiatrica legale coi vari metodi per esequirla e la casuistica penale classificata antropologicamente (Turin, 1905), 488; and L'uomo delinqueme in rapporte all'antropologia, alla giurisprudenza e alle discipline carcerarie , in the most extensive edition, the 5th (4 vols, Turin, 1896–97), with “Atlante” of the tables (among the most mentioned is the Verzeni case, ii, 3–6, 166 and ad indicem) and the “Prefazione” to the 2nd, from 1878, where he explained that he had drastically reduced the anatomical observations — The abundance of which had been cricitized — “knowing how poorly they are accepted by the scholars of the legal sciences”, pp. 2–4.

Lombroso , L'uomo delinquente (1878), 172.

Lucchini L. , I semplicisti (antropologi, psicologi e sociologi) del diritto penale: Saggio critico (Turin, 1886), 137–8.

Cf. Morselli E. , Manuale di semejotica delle malattie mentali: Guida alla diagnosi della pazzia per i medici, i medico-legisti e gli studenti (Milan, 1885), i, ch. 3; on the pletismograph, pneumograph, spirometer and other devices for physiological examination, pp. 181ff. Some of these are described and photographed in the catalogue of the Istituto e Museo di Storia della di Firenze Scienza , Misura d'uomo: Strumenti teorie e pratiche dell'antropometria e della psicologia sperimentale tra '800 e '900 (Florence, 1986), in which is my essay “Misurare le diversità”, pp. 119–71, including examples of psycho-anthropological experts' examinations. See also Broca P. , Instructions craniologiques et craniométriques de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris (Paris, 1875), and Instructions générales pour les recherches et les observations anthropologiques, 2nd edn (Paris, 1879).

Livi C. , “I periti alienisti nel'. Foro: Lettera al Prof. Comm. Francesco Carrara”, Rivista sperimentale di freniatria e di medicina legale in relazione con l'antropologia e le scienze giuridiche e sociali, i (1875), 258. Identical words in the defence of the legal psychiatrists appear, but with some reserve, in the most important legal periodical of the time; cf. Franzolini F. , “La giuria supplettoria pei giudizi sullo stato mentale innanzi alle corti d'assise”, Rivista penale, iii (1876), 254–5. Above all, the two mentioned here are the reviews to be taken into consideration for the controversy between the respective parties.

See “Interrogazione dell'on: Umana sui periti medici nei giudizi penali”, Rivista penale, iv (1878), 259–60.

Compiled by Lombroso , La perizia (ref. 4), 488.

See Morselli E. , the item “Criminalità” in Enciclopedia medica italiana (Milan, 1878), ii, par. II, 1969–75.

For example, in the volume by Babini V. P. Cotti M. Minuz F. Tagliavini A. , Tra sapere e potere (Bologna, 1982). Among the contributions containing more articulated interpretations, see that of S. Nicasi, “Il germe della follia: Modelli di malattia mentale nella psichiatria italiana di fine Ottocento”, in L'età del positivismo, ed. by Rossi P. (Bologna, 1986), 309–488, and Guarnieri P. , “Between soma and psyche: Morselli and psychiatry in late-nineteenth-century Italy”, in The anatomy of madness, ed. by Bynum W. F. Porter R. Shepherd M. (London and New York, 1988), iii, 102–24.

Among the many descriptions of types, I have selected some which are presumably the best examples, illustrated in the tables and explained by Lombroso, L'uomo delinquente, “Atlante” (ref 4), which also contains cases taken from Ferri E. , L'omicidio nell'antropologia criminale con Atlante antropologico-statistico (Turin, 1895).

Merz J. T. , A history of European thought in the nineteenth century, 2nd edn (New York, 1965), chapter “On the statistical view of nature”, ii, 548–626.

See Guarnieri P. Pogliano C. , “Il Positivismo”, in La storia , ed. by Tranfaglia N. Firpo M. (Turin, 1987), vii: “L'età contemporanea. 2, La cultura”, 294–311. See also Kolakowski L. , Positivist philosophy (Harmondsworth, 1972).

See Gould S. J. , The mismeasure of man (New York and London, 1981), esp. chs 3 to 5.

An ample documentation of trials with psychiatric expertise is offered, for Great Britain from 1840 to 1870, by the important study of history of ideas by Smith R. , Trial by medicine: Insanity and responsibility in Victorian trials (Edinburgh, 1981); but the British situation as regards background and specific legal and cultural aspects differed greatly from that of Italy.

For discussions and proposals of penal legislation prior to the Zanardelli code, see Paoli B. , Esposizione storica e scientifica dei lavori di preparazione del Codice Penale Italiano dal 1866 al 1884 (Florence, 1885), i, with special reference to imputability, 93–103.

See Carrara F. , Programma del corso di diritto criminate: Parte generale, 7th edn (Lucca, 1889), i, 27–28.

The distinction between judges of fact (jurymen) and judges of law (gowned) was reflected also in the sentence of imputability due to mental disorder, see Paoli B. , Nozioni elementan di diritto penale, 2nd edn rev. (Genoa, 1875), especially pp. 40ff.

Lombroso C. , “Studi clinici e antropometria sulle microcefalie”, abst. from Rivista clinica, 1873, 3.

In the Codice Procedure Penale of 1913, see on this subject arts. 208 and 211–15. See also Gabrieli F. P. , “Perizia (Diritto processuale penale)” in Nuovo digesto italiano (Turin, 1939), ix, 884–92.

For this interpretation, useful elements are provided by Fingarette H. , The meaning of criminal insanity (Berkeley, Calif., 1972), and Smith R. , “Expertise and causal attribution in deciding between crime and mental disorder”, Social studies of science, xv (1985), 67–69.

See Lucchini , I semplicisti (ref. 6), especially p. xxxi n. and pp. 21–22.

As concerns the complexity of research on expertise, Villa R. , “Perizie psichiatriche e formazione degli stereotipi dei devianti; note per una ricerca”, in Follia, psichiatria e società, edited by De Bernardi A. (Milan, 1982), 384–401.

See the paper presented at the psychiatric Congress of Reggio Emilia read for the committee by Amadei G. , “Delle migliori misure craniometriche da prendere sugli alienati”, Archivio italiano per le malattie nervose, xviii (1881), 268–79, and the one presented by Morselli E. , “Le ricerche craniometriche nei loro rapporti con la psichiatria”, ibid., 59–80.

An example of this interpretational persistence is found in Garland D. , Punishment and welfare: A history of penal strategies (Aldershot, 1985), especially pp. 77–111 on the Italian criminological school. But also Foucault M. , “About the concept of the ‘dangerous individual’ in 19th century legal psychiatry”, International journal of law and psychiatry, i (1987), 1–18.

Lucchini , I semplicisti (ref. 6), 143.

This is one of the conclusions of the experimental sciences opposed to the postulates of classic law, according to Ferri E. , Sociologia criminale, 4th edn (Turin, 1900), 63ff.

See the comments on this subject in the section on “Cause a delinquere”, in Atti ufficiali della sesta sessione del Congresso internazionale di statistica e Proposta di programma, ed. by Maestri P. (Florence, 1867), especially 49ff.

This debate in Parliament is mentioned by Ziino G. , “Delia pretesa mitezza de' medici nelle questioni di psichiatria forense”, Rivista sperimentale di freniatria, i (1875), 200–8.

Cf. Verzeni , in Processi celebri (ref. 3), 88.