“Our master and comrade”. Cesare Lombroso in the socialist press

Abstract

Cesare Lombroso's political writings, following his adhesion to socialism in 1894, highlight a significant change from the scholar's earlier positions. It is set in a dramatic historical context, in which Italian criminology had been forced to recognise the reality of a social disorder in which the role of deviance appeared far more complex and articulated, less optimistically legible than it had appeared a few decades earlier. Taking up that suggestion, the Author carries out an examination of the articles by (and about) Cesare Lombroso published in the newspaper Avanti!, organ of the Italian socialist party, between 1897 and 1905, with particular attention to 1898, the year that marked the tragic peak of the Italian crisis at the end of the century. The Author reflects on the reasons why the radicalism of Lombroso s` political writings was not matched by a significant and innovative scholarly production.