Résumés
This article outlines, for the first time, the main junctures in the historical memory of Cesare Lombroso and of the scholarly interpretation of his legacy, from his death in 1909 to the present. As someone whose life placed him at the centre of significant controversies, and as the symbolic figure of Italian positivism, Lombroso’s legacy has repeatedly been the object of conflict and been used to support various causes, through a period marked by profound and dramatic change. Historiographical reflection on his position within the human sciences, however, particularly in Italy and the United States, is of much more recent advent, and is still ongoing.
Cet article décrit, pour la première fois, les principales étapes constitutives de l’héritage historique de Cesare Lombroso et de l’interprétation savante de son œuvre, de sa mort en 1909 à nos jours. De son vivant, il a été placé au centre d’importantes controverses. Depuis lors, le legs intellectuel de cette figure symbolique du positivisme italien a été à plusieurs reprises l’objet de controverses et a été utilisé à l’appui de diverses causes, marquées par les changements d’époque. La réflexion historiographique sur la place de Lombroso dans les sciences humaines est cependant beaucoup plus récente et est en cours, en particulier en Italie et aux États-Unis.
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Extrait du texte
Ce document sera publié en ligne en texte intégral en décembre 2020.
Plan
Introduction
The aftermath of Lombroso’s death: “The great benefactor of the people”
Idealists, fascists, anti-semites and anti-fascists: 1910-1945
Chicago, 1937: two pioneers, but “too early”?
Lombroso after the Second World War: 1945-1970
The 1970s: international rediscovery and critique
A period of exploration: 1975-1990
The explosion of research since 2000
Conclusion
Aperçu du texte
Introduction
During his final days, in October 1909, while writing the preface to an English volume containing a summation of criminal anthropology, Cesare Lombroso looked back over the years to help his American readers understand “how the first outlines of this science arose in my mind.” For some time, the father of criminal anthropology had begun to recount the tales of his discoveries, and in his brief accounts he was not always honest. To the Americans, for example, he claimed that he had met the famous bandit Giuseppe Villella in prison and that later, when carrying out the man’s post-mortem, he had noticed the median occipital dimple whose “discovery” led him to deduce his theory of criminal atavism. Nowadays, we know that things happened very differently: Lombroso was his own first, and unreliable, historian. Nor can we expect to find greater accuracy in the accounts written by his collaborators: those of his daughters Paola and Gina (the guardian angel of the Lombroso myth) ...
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Pour citer cet article
Référence papier
Silvano Montaldo, « Lombroso: The Myth,The History », Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, vol. 22, n°2 | 2018, 31-61.
Référence électronique
Silvano Montaldo, « Lombroso: The Myth,The History », Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies [En ligne], vol. 22, n°2 | 2018, mis en ligne le 31 décembre 2020, consulté le 16 octobre 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chs/2283 ; DOI : 10.4000/chs.2283
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