#anthropometry

eucanthos

Harpyia horrifica

Edward Weston, Wonderland of Rocks, Mojave Desert, 1937

Objet trouvé: portrait collage w orange paper torn

Anger Detracts from Her Beauty, Weronika Perłowska, 2020 [eyes]

Urs Fisher, Noisette, 2009 [tongue]

La Circassienne au bain, 19th c. by Pierre-Joseph Tavernier after Blondel

Hendrick Goltzius, Dragon devouring companions of Cadmus, 1588 [wing]

Elisabeth of Valois, Queen of Spain by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, 1605 [hand]

Alphonse Bertillon "anthropometric" instrument

cargo container numbers

Harpy Eagle foot

R: Anti-Racism 1968 placard: Honor King End Racism!

anti-slop img

3rd var

In our previous exploration of Eugène-François Vidocq, we witnessed the remarkable transformation of a career convict into the founding father of modern criminal investigation. His innovative methods laid the groundwork for systematic policing not just in France, but worldwide. But what happened after Vidocq’s departure from the Sûreté? How did criminal investigation evolve throughout the…

CW: human remains, racism, sexism, homophobia, and strong language

-

-

-

Yesterday my partner and I met up at a museum I never expected us to meet up at: Il museo di antropologia di criminale or Il museo di Cesaro Lombroso. Oddly sharing the building space with two other museums, namely Il museo della frutta (the museum of fruit) and Il museo della anatomia humana (the museum of human anatomy) this museum wasn't exactly one of Turin's most attractive tourist destinations.

Nonetheless, my friends had recommended it to us, and Antonio crudely joked that it was important that I witness "anthropology's mistakes". Given that many high schoolers in the region end up in Torino to visit its many museums, many people I knew had already been there. As an anthropologist and sociologist who was mildly infatuated with deviance during my undergrad years, this seemed like the place for me to visit. I kept thinking: just exactly, how did dear Cesaro embarrass us anthropologists even more than I was already aware of?

For those who are not familiar with anthropology, or if you are but happened to miss the historical summary of this terrible guy, Cesare Lombroso is the guy who charted criminality using skull measurements. So-called anthropometry as indicators of a person's likelihood towards committing crime. Using the corpses of several prisoners, both Italian and not, Lombroso sought to quantify physical characteristics that signaled criminality. From the size of one's brow bone to the presence of tattoos, it seemed like Lombroso was suspicious of any type of physical or expressed cultural difference. Hence, those prone to being free of crime were both white, and arguably boring.

In Victorian wood glass cases, very reminiscent of my experience at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, were skulls of actual Italian prisoners he studied. While not all the skulls were identifiable, there were a number of actual identified prisoner's skulls being displayed. Super duper creepy, in my opinion. Alongside those, were a selection of coloured wax maschere mortuarie (death masks) tagged with details like the name of the prisoners, their number, their home province, and their crime in large capital letters. Murders. Rapists. Document Falsifiers. It was very unnerving to see their faces from their deathbed, eerily replicated by both Lombroso and the other mortuary figures/anatomists he partnered with.

There were photographs of the dead prisoners, back from when they were still alive (of course). Weapons collected from the crimes of the prisoners-- think crucifixes with hidden knives, iron keys, and blunt objects. Personal artefacts like clothes or even crafts they made during the imprisonment were artfully arranged. Among the most silly, if not personal for me, was a selection of photographs of prisoners from French Indochina that were donated to Lombroso's cause by another questionable colonial French scientist. As Anto and I opened the digital touch display, a giant photograph of a Cambodian man appeared. Herein, Lombroso wrote notes about what the "Asian" criminal was like in comparison to other European ones. Che stronzo.

Beside Lombroso's anthropometric instruments were his collection of animal skeletons, which he used to base his ideas of racial hierarchy. He was a valiant believer in the idealised pure White man, which reigned over the "others" which he organised into categories of colour. "Black/brown" being at the bottom, followed by "yellow", "semite" and so fourth.

He then also accrued different characteristics about the impure/criminal white man, so all I took away from this is that you had to be both white and not do anything interesting in your life to begin with. Furthermore, being born into a working class/poor economic situation apparently doomed you to committing crime. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone was safe from his harsh, very poorly-conceived designations. However, in my opinion, being not-white and not-a-man, made your judgments way harsher.

Unsurprisingly, even hearing a voice actor recant Lombroso's racial purity hierarchy made me nauseous. Don't even get me started on his commentary about women, but most especially lesbians. He had this whole disgustingly confused notion that yes, women deserved rights, but they're actually still biologically inferior to men. They're just not able to be smart, he thought. He wrote and spoke a lot about how women criminals were even more evil and devilish than their man counterparts, being sure to emphasis how much he hates prostitutes. Prostitutes, as he believed, were more prone to the crime of homosexuality. Hah, okay. Calm down Cesaro, we get it. Nobody likes you...and for good reason!

Overall, it was a good museum visit. Indeed, science does progression from trial and error. It was good to see an anthropologist who did such incredibly poor work get corrected with time. Acknowledged for how stupid all his frameworks were. It's not to diminish the impact his work made...which I feel still lingers to this day within toxic hate group rationalities, but for the most part, we acknowledge what he did/believed in were actual mistakes.

Yves Klein (28 April, 1928 – 6 June, 1962)