Notice the heavy rusticated stone facade featuring a tall, arched wooden doorway flanked by a gleaming golden plaque. We just left the meteorological station, where scientists looked up at the sky to understand the natural world, but here, the focus was turned downward, into the darkest corners of the human mind. Turin was rapidly changing from a grand royal capital into a gritty testing ground for new ideas in society and science, and some of those ideas were deeply unsettling.
In the late nineteenth century, a physician named Cesare Lombroso walked these very streets, convinced he had unlocked the secret of human evil. He developed the flawed, highly controversial theory of criminal atavism, the idea that criminality was an inherited, biological trait visible in a person's physical features. This disturbing pursuit culminated in a massive, morbid collection of skulls, brains, and murder weapons that was first opened to the general public during the 1884 General Exhibition. It was presented to society as a triumph of modern reason, but looking back, it feels more like a dangerous form of nineteenth century scientific ambition.
Lombroso's obsession was absolute. He even kept the skull of an impoverished elderly shepherd named Giuseppe Villella on his desk as a macabre paperweight. Lombroso famously claimed Villella was a ferocious, agile bandit, and that a small indentation at the base of his skull proved that criminals were simply evolutionary throwbacks to primitive man. Modern historians have entirely dismantled this dramatic tale. Villella was no master criminal. He was just a poor, hungry man arrested for stealing some cheese and a couple of young goats, and he died of illness in prison years before Lombroso claimed to have performed his supposedly groundbreaking autopsy.
Lombroso also acquired the remains of David Lazzaretti, a peaceful mystic who led a proto-socialist religious community in Tuscany before police shot him. Lombroso labeled Lazzaretti a perfect specimen of religious madness, displaying his vibrant processional banners alongside parts of his body preserved in jars of formaldehyde. It was a cold, clinical reduction of a deeply complex human life.
Yet, there is a glimmer of light in this building's history. Lombroso's son-in-law, Mario Carrara, later directed the museum. In 1931, Carrara committed a rare act of immense bravery. He refused to swear the mandatory oath of loyalty to the fascist regime, stating his duty was to impartial science, free from political coercion. He was expelled, losing his professorship and his clinic, but he did not surrender. Instead, he turned his own home into a secret safe haven for the anti-fascist resistance.
The museum is open Monday through Saturday from ten in the morning until six in the evening, though it is closed on Sundays, should you wish to confront this dark chapter yourself. But for now, let us leave this heavy history behind and walk back toward the green expanse of the park. We are going to transition from controversial science to a celebration of modern athletic triumph, at the site of the 1997 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, which is about a nine minute walk away.
