The Museum will virtually bring to your homes a selection of photographs coming from our archive. Every week you will discover new images.
Giuseppe Falqui the “hypnotic subject” Turin, 6th of December 1890.
Aducco, albumen print on cardboard.
Giuseppe Falqui, born in Alessandria (north-west of Italy) from a Turinese mother and a Sardinian father, is a magnetizer, magician and lives on illusionist shows. He would often offer himself as a paid “hypnotic subject” to be studied by any scientist interested in the phenomenon of the transmission of thought. On the 6th of December 1890, he was in Turin and presented himself at the School of Psychiatry of Cesare Lombroso to be examined: on that occasion, this photograph was taken in the premises of the Royal University.
In 1891 he was involved in the case of the Libro del Comando (the Book of Command) a text of popular origin that brought richness to whom possessed it. For the prosecutor, he encouraged an armed robbery carried out in Sassuolo, in the province of Modena, (northeast of Italy) by five youngsters that wanted to get hold of the book they thought was in the hands of a fellow citizen. After getting well paid, Falqui pretended to be hypnotized convincing the criminals to commit the theft.