ìThe Museum will virtually bring to your homes a selection of photographs coming from our archive. Every week you will discover new images.
Canevari of Orosei, psychiatric hospital San Lazzaro of Reggio Emilia, approx.1880.
Emilio Poli, albumen print on cardboard.
Canevari, from Orosei (Nuoro, Sardinia) was accused of parricide (murder of a relative) and despite the psychiatric expertise confirming the diagnosis of paranoid disorder, he was convicted and then interned in the psychiatric hospital San Lazzaro of Reggio Emilia.
Images such as this one reflected the specific studies of each doctor within psychiatric institutions of the late nineteenth century and were sent to the patient’s families along with information on the mental disease development. Photography was for some psychiatrists also a useful therapeutic tool, the prospect of creating a portrait to be sent to their families calmed and made the patients compose themself.
On the back of this image we can read the name and the pathology of the patient: “Canevari di Orosei. Parricida. Paranoico condannato come caso di reo punibile” (Canevari of Orosei. Parricide. Paranoic convicted as a case of punishable offender) and the ink stamp of the “Laboratorio di Medicina Legale della R. Università di Torino Diretto dal Prof. Lombroso” (the Laboratory of Forensic Medicine of the Royal University of Turin directed by Prof. Lombroso).