Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) was an Italian physician and psychiatrist, the founder of the school of criminal anthropology. Professor at the University of Turin, he argued in Criminal Man that many criminals were born, not made, and could be recognized by physical signs he considered throwbacks to an earlier stage of evolution. He applied similar ideas to women, to political radicals and to genius, which he linked to madness in The Man of Genius. His theories were widely debated and are now discredited, but his insistence on studying offenders scientifically helped found modern criminology.