The Museum will virtually bring to your homes a selection of photographs coming from our archive. Every week you will discover new images.
Emilio Decarli, young Swiss criminal, 1900.
Fratelli Buchi Locarno, albumen print on cardbord.
On the case of Emilio Decarli, thirteen-year-old criminal of Minusio (Switzerland), Lombroso is consulted by the mayor of that municipality, who sends him a letter dated October 4, 1900, and a medical report of the child asking for his expertise.
Lombroso studied young offenders. He argued that childhood is a time when the predominance of instincts and the lack of moral handbrakes recreate the living conditions of primitive men and criminals. On the front of the photograph, we can read this inscription: “Decarli Emilio a 13 years old criminal”.