Museo di Antropologia Criminale - Cesare Lombroso, Criminal anthropology museum in Turin, Italy
The Museo di Antropologia Criminale - Cesare Lombroso occupies rooms in the Palazzo degli Istituti Anatomici on via Pietro Giuria, in the university quarter of Turin. Its permanent display, open since 2009, gathers Lombroso's private collection: about 684 human skulls, 27 skeletal remains, 183 human brains kept off display, 502 bodies of evidence, 42 restraint irons, around a hundred death masks, 175 prisoner-made artefacts and 475 drawings by asylum inmates.
The institution grew from the research collections of a professor at Turin University and was established as a separate museum in the late 19th century. It moved several times within the university before settling at its current location.
The museum's name comes from Cesare Lombroso, the Turin physician who founded criminal anthropology and gathered the objects from prisons, asylums and army barracks. Visitors can see death masks, prisoner-made crafts and drawings by inmates, material that shows how physiognomy was used to link faces and skulls to crime.
The museum is located within the university complex and is relatively easy to reach if you know where to look. It is helpful to check ahead about opening times, as they are limited and may change seasonally.
The collection holds over 7,000 objects, including human skulls and personal items from prisoners and psychiatric patients of the 19th century. These pieces show in a stark way how different the people were whose lives were examined at that time.
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