L Uomo Delinquente: Patterns of Criminality and the Architecture of the Cell Olga Touloumi In 1885, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome hosted text of post-Risorgimento Italy and its identity politics,^ the 3rd International Penitentiary Congress and the 1st the two exhibitions reflected parallel efforts to define and International Congress on Criminal Anthropology simul- standardize both the space and its occupant via formal taneously.' At the Penitentiary Congress, prison labor analysis. products, confinement mechanisms, and life-size models The chronicle of this dialogue between discourses on of prison cells reflected a fixation with the standardiza- criminality, form, behavior, and architecture, all began tion of prison architecture and cell typology while, at the with a laboratory discovery of a fossetta, a small mor- second Congress, the emerging discipline of criminal an- phological deviation of the skull.-' [Fig. I] While director thropology was exhibiting its research on manifestations of the Pesaro asylum, Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), of delinquency and criminal typology with death masks, performed an autopsy on the skull of Italian brigand- replicas of appendages, and detailed anatomical draw- Giuseppe Villella. During the procedure, he was aston- ings of prisoners' skulls and bodies. In response to the ished to discover a small dimple on the back of the skull, Italian Interior Minister's request that the study of peni- with a part of the spinal column below it. tentiary reform occur within the prison,; both criminal anthropology and prison architecture attempted to pres- / seemed to see all at once, standing out clearly illumined ent their respective subject matters as being in pursuit of as in a vast plain under a flaming sky. the problem of the a type, a pattern. nature of the criminal, who reproduces in civilized times Situated between the panopticon model of the early characteristics, not only of primitive savages, but of still Enlightenment period and the wing-organized prison lower types as far back as the carnivores.^ of the 20th century, prison architecture of this period mainly privileged a radial configuration. With the cells The story of Villella's autopsy and Lombroso's discov- developing linearly along corridors and not circumfer- ery would have remained only another Eureka! anecdote entially around a tower, life inside the cells ceased to in the history of science had it not coincided with the be subject to a centralized gaze, or to its absence - to unification of Italy. The Italian state was unifying the put it in Foucaultian terms. Instead cell typology came to dispersed body of penitentiary institutions into one insti- the forefront of prison architecture. Set within the con- tution under the auspices of the central authority of the 49 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld_a_00595 by guest on 25 September 2021 state. A basic intention of the state was to codify what the area of the tattoo, the more violent the individual. constituted an ItaUan- from amongst its diverse regional According to him, the tattoo's "complexity, multiplicity, and its situation upon the most sensitive portions of the populations- and so it called upon the sciences to par- body, where even savages avoid placing it, [shows] the ticipate in this attempt to formalize a type- the Italian greatest insensibility on the part of the criminals."' The citizen- through the support of scientific methods that arms, upper body, legs, and head of each soldier were classified race and class. graphically depicted and arrayed on drawing plates pro- The fossetta "discovery" provided the necessary pre- viding a comprehensive survey of the tattooed body as text for the inauguration of the discipline of criminal an- well as of isolated tattoos [Fig. 2]. Later incorporated into thropology and further research on criminal types, with the fifth volume of his treatise on the delinquent man, the support of the Italian penal system. In reality, the the Atlante,' this method of documentation set the initial research had already been launched while Lombroso framework for the connection drawn between behavioral served as physician in the Calabrian military from 1859 to and morphological patterns. 1863." After graduating from the School of Medical Stud- Moving from the military establishments in Calabria ies in the University of Padua, he joined the Risorgimento to the Pesaro Asylum and the University of Turin," Lom- transferred to Calabria, where he docu- forces and was broso isolated formal analysis as a fundamental analytic mented the tattoos covering soldiers' bodies. Lombroso tool for his research. In addition to studying the delin- saw characteristics such as color, shape, complexity and quent body, he initiated research comparing the artifacts position of tattoo as indicative of a decipherable formal produced by the prisoners with the morphology of their lexicon of delinquency. The more elaborate the form, the bodies. His archives now included graffiti, petit sculp- more dangerous the owner; the more physically sensitive tures, samples of hand-writing and "pictografia," all il- lustrating "the peculiar and atavistic tendency to express the thoughts ... that preoccupy him [the criminal] with figures."'" He also compared criminal skull diameter, na- sal shape, and asymmetries between the left and right sides of the body, with their relationship to the particu- lar kind of criminal activity the individual was engaging in. This data was then organized into extensive catalogs relating certain morphologies to specific types of delin- quency. Almost any indications of asymmetry, complex- ity, or morphological irregularity on the criminal's body or art product became interpreted as indicative of a crim- inal pattern. Thieves especially are apt to have submicrocephaly more C C B B frequently than normal beings, but less often than insane, A while swindlers, bandits, and assassins are apt to have a head of exaggerated size, similar to that of the racial type, but larger. Congenital criminals present frequent cranial VILLELLA and facial asymmetry: this is especially the case with rav- ishers and thieves, and yet less in them than in the insane, A.Fosaa occipitale media although they exhibit more traumatic lesions of the head, 6 .Create che la hmitano and greater obliquity of the eyes . There are several dif- C.Tubercoli ossoi ferential points in the various classes of criminals." Fig. 1- Plan ol VillelldS skull indicjung the area around Ihe "fosseta" a Medial occipilal fossa (fosseta). b Cresis limiling it (Ihe fossa), c Tubercle bones Ollolenghi. Salvalore Trattato di poiizta saertlifica Milano: Societa edilrice librana. 1910-1932. 50 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld_a_00595 by guest on 25 September 2021 f-'J* K. fl.J tt 1.? -;# -<:\ . te> 5 '['A 'C'" /•'j! I/: Fig- 2 Sketches of talloos on the 5th volume of "L'Uonio Delinquetite" Lombroso, Cesare L' Vomo Delmqutmte in Rappano all' Anrrcpologia. Ciunspnidenza e alia Discipline Carcerane Tonno Fratelli Bocca, 1878 Driven by the fantasy of the asymmetrical, ornamented, cell capacity at low construction cost; the call for per- outre body of the criminal, juxtaposed against the ideal fected state control apparatus applied uniformly on the of the symmetrical, unornamented, Italian body, and the delinquent population; and the profitable operation of desire to codify the former, the Lombroso team came up the institution through prison labor. Within the general with, not one, but multiple variations on a generic crimi- euphoric atmosphere, the Illustrazione Italiana went nal type, unintentionally proving the work of criminal so far as to attribute to the cell the characteristics of an typology to be an almost impossible task. The discourse on prison architecture was also departing from the pursuit of the ideal building type and focusing instead on the unit that contained the crimi- nal: the cell. At the 3rd International Penitentiary Con- gress, the interest in cell standardization took the form of an exhibition organized in three parts: the first show- ing models of cell types in use at the most outstand- ing penitentiaries of each participating country [Figs. 3. 4],<^ the second displaying confinement equipment and construction details of each respective cell type, and the third exhibiting prison labor products [Fig. 5]." The tripartite exhibition celebrated cell typology as the absolute manifestation of utilitarianism, resolving at once three issues: the need for prisons with a maximum IIS showing the hall hosting pan of the (oreign patlicipation to the prison labor iil'ilion L'tllustTOZione Itahana Milano: Editore Garijnti, 1885. 51 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld_a_00595 by guest on 25 September 2021 ideal housing unit. One anonymous writer exclaimed cell that was soon to contain it. that "few of us have rooms so elegant in our houses." Published in the proceedings of the congress, the ac- Each cell was reproduced full-size with the exact companying construction documents outlined architec- construction materials and dimensions, "with real doors, tural guidelines for cell typology built around the desire real bolts and the whole arrangement of a real peni- for the modularization of the criminal. Each cell was pre- sented in the proceedings through four plates; a first and second plate with a detailed plan, two cross sections and two longitudinal sections, a third plate with construction details, and