Cesare Lombroso

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

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Lived 1835–1909, aged 74Italy

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Era
1835–1909
Aged 74

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

He thought you could spot a criminal by the shape of their skull. Cesare Lombroso built a science out of measuring faces and bodies to prove that lawbreakers were evolutionary throwbacks—born defective, marked from birth.

Biography

About

Born Ezechia Marco Lombroso on 6 November 1835, he trained as a physician in Italy and turned his attention to the question of why people commit crimes. The classical school said crime was a choice inherent to human nature; Lombroso rejected that outright. Drawing from physiognomy, degeneration theory, psychiatry, and Social Darwinism, he argued that criminality was inherited—that a "born criminal" could be identified by physical defects marking them as savage or atavistic. His theory of anthropological criminology made him the founder of the Italian school and reshaped Western notions of indi…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso

said1909

Unfortunately, goodness and honor are rather the exception than the rule among exceptional men, not to speak of geniuses.

— Die Welt (1909); also in A Treasury of Jewish Quotations (1985) by Joseph L. Baron

Cesare Lombroso

said1891

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.

— p. x

Cesare Lombroso

said1891