The Museum will virtually bring to your homes a selection of photographs coming from our archive. Every week you will discover a new image.
Antonio Tolomei, a skillful carver institutionalized at the Santa Croce insane asylum of Macerata during the second half of the 19thcentury.
Antonio Tolomei, described by Lombroso as a maker of “ideological artistic objects” is considered by the scientist a “mattoid” an emblematic example of the links between genius and insanity.
The museum’s photographic archive preserves over 250 pictures coming from different psychiatric institutions all over Italy (Imola, Macerata, Racconigi, Reggio Emilia, Torino, Voghera). In the second half of the 19th century photography becomes one of the most important tools for the observation and the diagnosis of mental illness.