Skip to content
Cesare Lombroso

File:Lombroso.JPG · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

EntityQ202420· pop 59· linked from 408 articles

Cesare Lombroso

Sign in to save

Also known as Ezechia Marco Lombroso

Italian psychiatrist, physician, and criminologist (1835-1909)

AI overview

Cesare Lombroso was an Italian doctor and criminologist in the 1800s who became famous for developing theories about criminal behavior based on physical characteristics. His work had enormous influence on criminology and law enforcement, though his ideas are now widely rejected by modern science as pseudoscience.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works
48

Top works

  • Criminal Man
  • Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman
  • Uomo Delinquente
  • Crime Its Causes and Remedies
  • Tre Tribuni Studiati Da un Alienista

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Group
Country
IT

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
5
Total plays
21

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Cesare+Lombroso">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Cesare Lombroso

Quotes

  • Unfortunately, goodness and honor are rather the exception than the rule among exceptional men, not to speak of geniuses.
  • Genius is one of the many forms of insanity.
  • Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.
  • Klopstock was questioned regarding the meaningof a passage in his poem. He replied, "God and I both knew what it meant once; now God alone knows."
  • The appearance of a single great genius is more than equivalent to the birth of a hundred mediocrities.
  • The ignorant man always adores what he cannot understand.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Gender
male
Citizenship
Kingdom of Italy
Place of birth
Verona
Place of death
Turin
Languages spoken
Italian
Religion
atheism
Field of work
psychiatry
Image
Cesare Lombroso. Photogravure. Wellcome V0026740 (cropped).jpg
Show 10 more facts
Commons category
Cesare Lombroso
date of birth
1835-11-06
date of death
1909-10-19
Commons Creator page
Cesare Lombroso
Commons gallery
Cesare Lombroso
writing language
Italian
name in native language
Cesare Lombroso
birth name
Marco Ezechia Lombroso
contributed to creative work
Popular Science
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

Works in European collections

2 objects attributed to Cesare Lombroso, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana

~29 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Cesare Lombroso (/lɒmˈbroʊsoʊ/ lom-BROH-soh, US also /lɔːmˈ-/ lawm-; Italian: [ˈtʃeːzare lomˈbroːzo, ˈtʃɛː-, -oːso]; born Ezechia Marco Lombroso; 6 November 1835 – 19 October 1909) was an Italian eugenicist, criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian school of criminology. He is considered the founder of modern criminology by changing the Western notions of individual responsibility.

Lombroso rejected the established classical school, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature. Instead, using concepts drawn from physiognomy, degeneration theory, psychiatry, and Social Darwinism, Lombroso's theory of anthropological criminology essentially stated that criminality was inherited, and that someone "born criminal" could be identified by physical (congenital) defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage or atavistic.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Cesare Lombroso” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (4)