Fotografo non identificato, stampa all’albumina

The Museum will virtually bring to your homes a selection of photographs coming from our archive. Every week you will discover new images.

Callisto Grandi, the children slayer, approx.1880.

Unidentified photographer, albumen print on cardboard.

Part of a group of photographs sent to Lombroso by the physician and anthropologist Enrico Morselli, this image portrays Callisto Grandi, a 24 years old craftsman from Incisa Val d’Arno (central Italy) arrested in 1875 and charged with the killing of four children and the attempted murder of a fifth one. For the jury Grandi is guilty of crimes determined by the desire for revenge and carried out by a clear mind, he is prosecuted and sentenced to twenty years of hard labour.

Lombroso takes a public position against this sentence: according to him, Grandi was affected by insanity and cretinism, a condition characterized by the presence of “cruel and ferocious instincts” and as such he shouldn’t have been sent to jail but a psychiatric hospital.

This case generated a wide political debate in Italy and created a turnover point towards the creation of psychiatric hospitals for criminals.