author
Cesare Lombroso
1835–1909
A physician and criminologist from 19th-century Italy, he helped shift the study of crime toward observation and data, even as many of his most famous theories were later rejected. His work remains important for understanding how modern criminology began—and how badly science can go wrong when bias shapes it.
5 Audiobooks
Nuovi studii sul genio vol. I (da Colombo a Manzoni)
by Cesare Lombroso
La delinquenza nella Rivoluzione francese La vita italiana durante la Rivoluzione francese e l'Impero
by Cesare Lombroso
The Man of Genius
by Cesare Lombroso
Nuovi studii sul genio vol. II (Origine e natura dei genii)
by Cesare Lombroso
About the author
Born in Verona on November 6, 1835, and later active in Turin, Cesare Lombroso was an Italian physician, psychiatrist, and criminologist. He is often remembered as a founder of the Italian school of criminology because he tried to study crime through medicine, measurement, and observation rather than through legal theory alone.
Lombroso became widely known for arguing that some people were "born criminals" and could be identified by physical traits. Those ideas drew on physiognomy and phrenology and were highly influential in his own time, but they have since been discredited. Even so, his work helped push criminology toward systematic research and sparked lasting debates about biology, environment, punishment, and responsibility.
Today, he is read as both a historically important and deeply controversial figure. For listeners interested in the history of crime, medicine, and social thought, his life offers a revealing look at the ambitions—and the dangers—of early scientific thinking about human behavior.