Museum of Criminal Anthropology "C. Lombroso"- University Turin

The year 2009, the centenary of the death of Cesare Lombroso, founder of criminal anthropology, saw the renovation of “his” unique museum. The collections include anatomical specimens, drawings, photographs, examples of material evidence, written documents, and valuable craft and artistic works created by asylum and prison inmates.

History

The museum collection Via della Zecca 33. 
In 1876, Lombroso kept his collection (accumulated since 1859 when he was an army medical officer) in his house, encumbering it “with skeletons and boxes of the Museum”. 

Via Po 18. 
In 1877, the collection was transferred to the Laboratory in Via Po 18, in a large room “with plaster ceilings and an immense window overlooking the Po” at whose centre was a big table that “occasionally served as a bed for patients, as a table for experiments... and as a professor’s desk”. 

Parco del Valentino. Italian General Exhibition 1884. 
In 1884, Lombroso participated in the anthropology display of the Italian General Exhibition with a “pellagrological” showcase and another with “anomalous skulls, masks, tattoos, photographs of criminals, material evidence, daggers, playing cards... drawings and objects that belonged to or were made by criminals”. 

Via Michelangelo 26. 
In 1896, the Museum was transferred to the new headquarters of the Institute by Mario Carrara, a student and assistant of Lombroso, who dealt with re-ordering, subdividing and displaying the collection in six rooms on the ground floor. During his direction (1904-31), new objects documented “the developments of the scientific police and forensic medicine”. 

Corso Galileo Galilei 22. 
Used less and less for teaching, the Museum accompanied the Institute in 1948 to the new headquarters in Corso Galilei, followed by Lombroso’s private study, donated by the family. Neither officially closed nor open to the public, the museum returned to being a collection. 

Mole Antonelliana. “Science and Guilt” exhibition 1985. 
Rediscovered in the mid-1970s, the collection was partly exhibited 10 years later in the “Science and Guilt” exhibition. A plan was devised to locate it in the ex-criminal insane asylum of the Collegno Charterhouse. 

Via Giuria 15. 
After the above-mentioned plan was abandoned, it was decided in 2001 to set up the museum in the Anatomical Institutes Building as part of the “Museum of Mankind” project, providing a common home to the Museums of Human Anatomy, of Criminal Anthropology and of Anthropology and Ethnography (the last one still in Via Accademia Albertina). Flanked in 2006 by the Museum of Fruit, they constitute the museum complex dedicated to Turinese scientific positivism between the 19th and 20th centuries.

ACCESSIBILITY

Free access for disabled people with guide

HOW TO REACH

PUBLIC TRANSPORTS
Lines 9, 16, 18, 67, Metro (Nizza Stop)

ADMISSION

Tickets (cash)

€ 5,00 admission fee
€ 3,00 reduced (12 to 18 years old, 65 and over, FAI memberships)
Free admission every Wednesday of the year and for cardholders Subscription museums Torino Piemonte and Torino + Piemonte Card ()

Combo ticket for admission to three museums € 10.00 admission fee; € 6.00 reduced
(Lombroso Museum, Museum of Anatomy and Museum of Fruit)



Guided tour

The guided tour lasts one hour and costs € 35,00. The maximum number per group is 25 participants. To book, call Monday through Saturday from 9 to 17 (phone +39 011 6708195).