Pasquale Penta (1859-1904), un antropologo criminale non soltanto lombrosiano

In the updating of medical historiography the debate of positive or negative expressions about the criminal anthropology asproposed by Lombroso never seems to have ceased. Some critical remarks already began within the same boundaries of theschool that recognized him as a teacher. In retracing the incessant discussion, our attention focused on the almost forgottenfigure of Pasquale Penta, a psychiatrist and criminal anthropologist of the late nineteenth century who had a good reputationamong his contemporaries, presenting himself in the Italian scientific world as one of the most valid exponents of the studiesof sector. He soon knew the works of Cesare Lombroso and accepted his dictation, but with a personal position. It stood alongsidethose who felt they had to counteract a criminal determinism based on individual anthropometry and in particular on themetric observation of the skull. Our analysis also focuses on the text of his lectures dictated in the school year 1899-1900 inthe University of Naples collected in a lithographed volume, a really useful tool to learn the history of teaching psychiatry andcriminal anthropology in a fundamental period of the doctrinal development of these two disciplines.