The Museum will virtually bring to your homes a selection of photographs coming from our archive. Every week you will discover a new image.
Didactic poster of the Italian School of Scientific Police, beginning of the 19th Century.
Unidentified photographer, gelatin silver prints mounted on cardboard, paper labels with ink inscriptions.
This poster was made to show the role of photography as a fundamental tool for the identification of criminals. The man here portraited, a foreigner vagabond stopped by the police in different cities changes his physical appearance just like a transformist, making it impossible to recognize him. The poster confronts the different camouflages and shows the common features of the man’s face clarifying his identity.
Salvatore Ottolenghi, a former student of Lombroso, develops forensic science investigations techniques that include the use of photography together with a descriptive report of both anthropometric measurements and fingerprints of criminals. In 1902 he founds in Rome the Italian School of Scientific Police.