Abstract
Compared with England and the other great national monarchies, we face considerable difficulties in the reconstruction of the historical development of the Italian prison even with regard to its essential features. General material on Italy’s socio-economic development and studies on our specific theme are thin on the ground. The lack of a unified central power – both a cause and an effect of Italy’s historic backwardness – and the lack of a national monarchy which proved elsewhere to be of fundamental importance especially during the formative period of capitalism (the age of mercantilism) certainly present us with major problems. It is perhaps superfluous to add that this lack of unity failed to boost economic development in Italy thus preventing the generalisation of a whole series of experiences, ideas and measures such as prison. In Italy these experiences can only be seen as the heritage of individual states or regions. Thus it is arbitrary to consider Italy as a single entity, especially in relation to our subject, whereas in other countries, economic homogeneity and state intervention were the basis on which it was possible to develop initiatives in the sphere of prison.
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Notes
- 1.
M. Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (London, 1963) p. 151.
- 2.
Regarding social relations in the Italian countryside, we use here (and subsequently) in particular studies by E. Sereni; cf. Agricoltura e mondo rurale, in Storia d’ltalia, I (Torino: 1972) p. 133, which summarises the theses advanced in other basic texts. In particular, see pp. 185 ff. for a study of the role played by the Mezzadria system in central-northern Italy.
- 3.
On the Florentine Ciompi, protagonists of an intense round of class struggles in the second half of the fourteenth century, see Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, p. 158; N. Rodolico, I ciompi (Firenze, 1965); V. Rutemberg, Popolo e movimenti popolare nell’Italia del ‘300 e ‘400 (Bologna, 1971) pp. 157–329.
- 4.
Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, p. 119. On these themes see K. Marx, Capital (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1977), vol. i, p. 258 ff. and 688 ff.
- 5.
See Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, p. 160.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 158.
- 7.
Cf. A. Fanfani, Storia del lavoro in Italia (Dalla fine del secolo XV agli inizi del XVIII) (Milano, 1959) pp. 1–59.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Ibid., pp. 51, 52; for a very specific but important discussion demonstrating this kind of productive development, see C. Poni’s essay: ‘Archéologie de la fabrique: la diffusion des moulins à soie “alla bolognese” dans les Etats Venitiens du XVIeme au XVIIIeme siecles,’ Annales (1972) p. 1475.
- 10.
See Fanfani, Storia del lavoro, pp. 113–17.
- 11.
Ibid., p. 114.
- 12.
Ibid., pp. 118–19.
- 13.
See B. Geremek, Il pauperismo nell’età preindustriale (secoli XIV– XVIII), in Storia d’Italia, vol. v, no. 1 (Torino, 1973) pp. 677 ff. On the conception of charity in Luther, see pp. 24 ff. and in Muratori, pp. 77 ff.
- 14.
Geremek, Il pauperismo, pp. 678–83.
- 15.
Ibid., pp. 686–7.
- 16.
Ibid., pp. 689–91.
- 17.
Ibid., pp. 691–2. On the origins of ospedali in Italy (and Europe) between the late medieval period and the Renaissance cf. the ample documentation in Atti del Primo Congresso Italiano di Storia Ospitaliera (Reggio Emilia, 1957) and the Primo Congresso Europeo di Storia Ospitaliera (Reggio Emilia, 1962) ed. Centro Italiano di Storia Ospitaliera.
- 18.
From the preface to the ‘Statuti’ of Opera medicanti (Bologna: 1574). In G. Calori, Una iniziativa sociale nella Bologna del ‘500 – L’Opera Medicanti (Bologna, 1972) p. 17.
- 19.
Calori shows how in Bologna, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a continual flux of paupers from the countryside was accompanied by the unproductive immobilisation of capital characteristic of the political economy of the Counter-Reformation. Even though Bologna enjoyed a relatively developed manufacturing industry, it was typical of the Italian situation during this period.
- 20.
The small treatise La Mendicità proveduta nella città di Roma coll’Ospizio pubblico, dated 1639, was written at the express wish of Innocent xi in support of the practice of internment and it also served to spread the conviction that Hôpitaux were necessary in France. In Geremek, Il pauperismo, pp. 692–3.
- 21.
Cf. A Guevarre’s position in Geremek, Il pauperismo, p. 693.
- 22.
Calori, Una iniziativa, p. 45.
- 23.
See T. Sellin, ‘Filippo Franci. A Precursor of Modern Penology,’ Journal of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, xvii (1926–7) p. 104. Also on this see, M. Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma delle carceri in Italia, saggio storico e teorico (Torino: 1867) p. 359; D. Izzo, ‘Da Filippo Franci alla riforma Doria (1667–1907),’ Rassegna di studi penitenziari (1956) p. 293. For documentation and bibl. see Sellin’s essay cited above.
- 24.
See Sellin, Filippo Franci, p. 108.
- 25.
See Dal Pane, Storia del lavoro in Italia (dagli inizi del secolo XVIII al 1815) (Milano, 1958).
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 1–5.
- 27.
Ibid., p. 6; cf. on Italian demographic situation, A. Bellettini’s essay, ‘La popolazione italiana dall’inizio dell’era volgare ai giorni nostri. Valutazioni e tendenze,’ Storia d’italä vol. v, no. 1 (Torino: 1973) p. 489. It should be borne in mind that during the preceding century, population growth did not reach half of that reached in the eighteenth century. In any event, population growth in Italy was lower than that of Europe in general.
- 28.
See Dal Pane, Storia del lavoro in Italia, pp. 84–6.
- 29.
Ibid., pp. 202–17.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 221.
- 31.
Ibid., pp. 240 ff.
- 32.
Ibid., pp. 309 ff.
- 33.
Ibid., pp. 313, 314.
- 34.
See B. Caizzi, Storia dell’industria italiana (Torino: 1965) pp. 31–3. See how at the end of the eighteenth century charitable institutions furnished work to master craftsmen who were thrown out of work in Piedmont, Lombardy and the centres of the silk industry (Bologna, Florence, Veneto) in L. Dal Pane, Storia del lavoro in Italia, pp. 384, 385 (and bibl. Therein).
- 35.
See G. Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, i: Le origini del Risorgimento (Milano, 1959) pp. 90 ff.
- 36.
See Dal Pane, Storia del lavoro in Italia, pp. 309–11.
- 37.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, pp. 372, 373; A. Bernabo-Silorata, Case penali, in Digesto italiano, vol. vi (Torino: 1891) pp. 307 ff.
- 38.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma (1867) from which information on this topic hereafter is taken.
- 39.
Ibid., pp. 389–90.
- 40.
See pp. 79 ff.
- 41.
See J. Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, i: The State of the Prisons in England and Wales (1792) (Montclair, NJ, 1973) p. 122.
- 42.
Ibid., p. 123. On prisons in the Savoy States at the end of the eighteenth century, also see Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, pp. 402 ff.
- 43.
C. A. Vianello, Introduction to Relazioni sull’industria, il commercio e l’agricoltura lombardi del ‘700, ed. C. A. Vianello (Milano, 1941) p. XIII; and generally cf. Candeloro, Storia Dell’Italia moderna, pp. 78 ff.
- 44.
Vianello, Relazioni sull’industria, p. XIII
- 45.
Ibid., p. XVI. The different forms of punishment which came to be created in correlation to class differences with respect to the two typical participants of this offence is exemplary; one should remember that precisely in these years the Casa di correzione was set up in Milan (see below). On this edict see also Dal Pane, Storia del lavoro in Italia, p. 295.
- 46.
Vianello, Relazioni sull’industria, p. XXVI.
- 47.
See Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene (Milano, 1964), Eng. trans. Crimes and Punishments, J. A. Farrer, (London: Chatto, 1880).
- 48.
See my observations on pp. 47 ff.
- 49.
Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 97 (my emphasis); Eng. trans., p. 213. Here Beccaria formulates what is probably the clearest and most explicit definition of the meaning of detentive punishment in a society wherein this can take root, that is, in a classic bourgeois society based on free competition. Cf. also G. Rusche and O. Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure (New York, 1968), p. 76.
- 50.
See above p. 49.
- 51.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, pp. 385, 386; C. Cattaneo, ‘Delle carceri’ (1840) in Scritti politici, vol. i (Firenze, 1964) pp. 292–5.
- 52.
Cf. besides Beltrani-Scalia and Cattaneo, ibid. Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, pp. 121, 122 where a plan of the Casa di Correzione can also be found. Though Howard states that in 1778 the Casa is incomplete it was functioning. Beltrani-Scalia reports in this case of a Progetto per un Albergo de’ Poveri e Casa di correzione (project for a paupers’ hostel and house of correction) by Count P. Verri (on p. 386). Cf. also on the casa at Milan C. I. Petitti di Roreto, Della condizione attuale delle carceri e dei mezzi di migliorarla, in Opere scelte (Torino, 1969) p. 370; Comoli- Mandracci, Il carcere per la società del Sette-Ottocento (Torino, 1974) pp. 33–4.
- 53.
C. Cantù, Baccaria e il diritto penale (Firenze, 1862) p. 11.
- 54.
The fact that one day in the house of correction counted for two days’ punishment came to be represented by Cantù and Cattaneo, supporters of absolute segregation during the debate in the 1840s, so as to give the impression that in the casa such a principle was already being applied. But this is drastically excluded from Howard’s eye-witness account. Howard speaks in Prisons and Lazarettos (p. 121), of a dormitory and large work-rooms. Moreover, looking at the relationship between the actual number of prisoners and the number of cells (300/140), it seems doubtful that nightly separation was maintained. This may have been a practical expedient arising from the impossibility of implementing the original plan. But in view of the presence of rooms adapted for common labour, it would seem that even in terms of intention, the principle of nightly and daily segregation was not contemplated. Large common dormitories were envisaged for women – it was typical to allot different sections of the institution to men, women and vagabonds. Single cells were allocated to male criminals alone. See for example, the Maison de force at Ghent which, as we have said, was very similar to the Milanese casa, in Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, pp. 145 ff. (cf. the plan).
- 55.
See Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, p. 122.
- 56.
Cattaneo makes the same observation in Delle carceri, p. 295.
- 57.
See Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, pp. 121, 122.
- 58.
Ibid., pp. 120, 121.
- 59.
Ibid., p. 106.
- 60.
Cf. generally Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, pp. 98 ff; Beltrani- Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 374; Bernabò-Silorata, Case penali, ch. 6.
- 61.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, pp. 400–1.
- 62.
See Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, pp. 111 ff.
- 63.
Ibid., p. 121; Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 374; D. Palazzo, ‘Appunti di storia del carcere’, in Rassegna di Studi Penitenziari (1967) p. 20; Bernabò-Silorata, Case penali, ch. 6.
- 64.
See Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, p. 125; cf. also P. Nocito, I reati di Stato (Torino, 1893) pp. 202 ff. See essay cited by E. Sereni, Agricoltura e mondo rurale, in relation to social relations in the countryside.
- 65.
See Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, p. 107.
- 66.
Ibid., pp. 108–10.
- 67.
Ibid., p. 110.
- 68.
See Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, pp. 136 ff.
- 69.
Ibid., p. 150.
- 70.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, pp. 401, 402; Bernabò- Silorata, Case penali, chs. 5, 6.
- 71.
G. M. Galanti, Nuova descrizione storica e geografica delle Sicilie (Napoli: 1787–90) vol. iii, pp. 68–9; cf. on Galanti’s work, Dal Pane, Storia del lavoro in Italia, pp. 420 ff. but cf. in general the whole of ch. xiii, ‘Le questioni sociali negli scrittori italiani del Settecento’, p. 389.
- 72.
Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, p. 117. The Vicaria was the court and custodial prison of Naples. In the thirteenth century, Charles i of Anjou turned it into a supreme court and seat of the King’s vicariate with judicial responsibility. (A similar prison with the same name could be found at Palermo). The Vicaria was infamous amongst the southern masses; in the nineteenth century a song ran: ‘I raised my eyes and saw the Vicaria where I heard my punishment’; and another, ‘My heart sinks when I see the Vicaria’. (See the introductory note to Canti e racconti di prigione, ed. S. Boldini, I dischi del sole, DS 185/87/CL, 1969, pp. 31 ff. to which we refer the reader for other lively expressions of popular feeling towards prison although most of these are dated later than the period examined here.)
- 73.
Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, p. 290.
- 74.
See C. Poni, Aspetti e problemi dell’agricoltura modenese dall’età delle riforme alla fine della restaurazione, in Aspetti e problemi del Risorgimento a Modena (Modena, 1964) p. 123.
- 75.
See L. A. Muratori, ‘Della carità cristiana in quanto essa è amore del prossimo’ (1723), in Opere, vol. i (Milano-Napoli: 1964); Candeloro in Storia dell’Italia moderna stresses the great contribution Muratori made to the political and cultural life of the Duchy, pp. 110–11.
- 76.
See Poni, Aspetti e problemi dell’agricoltura modenese, pp. 123 ff.
- 77.
Ibid., p. 130.
- 78.
Ibid., p. 131.
- 79.
Ibid., p. 170; this also happened for the great part of the following century.
- 80.
Ibid., p. 134.
- 81.
Muratori, Della carità cristiana, p. 397.
- 82.
Ibid., p. 397.
- 83.
Ibid., p. 398.
- 84.
Ibid., p. 401.
- 85.
Ibid., pp. 402–3: the emphasis on honourable prison is mine.
- 86.
See above p. 37.
- 87.
See Poni, Aspetti e problemi dell’agricoltura modenese, pp. 140–1. See ibid. for how the constitution of Opera Pia Generale dei Poveri to which the construction of the albergo was assigned brings with it the secularisation of charity and the confiscation of ecclesiastical property; cf. again on Muratori’s work on this theme: Dal Pane, Storia del lavoro in Italia, p. 398; Geremek, Il pauperismo, pp. 693 ff.
- 88.
See L. A. Muratori, Dei difetti della giurisprudenza (1742) (Roma, 1933); cf. B. Veratti, Intorno al trattato di L. A. Muratori sopra i difetti della giurisprudenza riguardato come uno dei fonti del Codice estense (Modena, 1859). The new code was published in 1771.
- 89.
Dal Pane, Storia del lavoro in Italia, p. 311.
- 90.
Ibid., p. 312.
- 91.
For the general situation in the Papal states, Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, pp. 693 ff. On the Civitavecchia galleys, cf. Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, pp. 115, 116; on Bologna, p. 107 and on the prisons and ospedali at Rome, pp. 111–15.
- 92.
See Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, pp. 131 ff.
- 93.
See above p. 65.
- 94.
The two moto proprio are dated 1693 and 1790. See Sellin, ‘The House of Correction for Boys in the Hospice of Saint Michael in Rome’, Journal of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. xx (1929–30), p. 533; Geremek, Il pauperismo, p. 691.
- 95.
See Sellin, The House of Correction, pp. 539 ff.; cf. also Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, pp. 384 ff.; Petitti di Roreto, Della condizione attuale, p. 368; Cattaneo, Delle carceri, p. 293; Izzo, Da Filippo Franci alla riforma Doria, pp. 290, 298; G. Minozzi, ‘Il trattamento del detenuto nella storia dell’edilizia carceraria italiana’, Rassegna di studi penitenziari, (1958) p. 696; Palazzo, Appunti di storia del carcere, vol. i p. 20; and finally, Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, pp. 113–14 (with plan and elevation). For recent bibl. see Sellin above. We should however cite the work of C. L. Morichini, Degli istituti di pubblica carità ed istruzione primaria e delle prigioni di Roma (Roma, 1842).
- 96.
See Sellin, The House of Correction, illustration on pp. 548–9.
- 97.
Ibid., p. 547.
- 98.
Howard, Prisons and Lazarettos, p. 114. Howard took the second motto for his Prisons and Lazarettos.
- 99.
See Sellin, The House of Correction, p. 550.
- 100.
Ibid., pp. 552–3.
- 101.
Cf. Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, chs. iii and iv.
- 102.
Ibid., pp. 329 ff.
- 103.
Suffice to record the famous essay by V. Cuoco on the failure of the Neopolitan Jacobin revolution in 1799 and on the subsequent use which came to be made of the ‘lazzaroni’ V. Cuoco, Saggio storico sulla rivoluzione di Napoli del 1799 (Bari, 1929); Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, p. 273.
- 104.
See E. J. Hobsbawm, Bandits (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969).
- 105.
Ibid., pp. 19 ff.
- 106.
Cf. for this thesis, A Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971) pp. 55 ff. Gramsci’s thesis is harshly criticised by R. Romeo in his essay Lo sviluppo del capitalismo in Italia, in the second part of his Risorgimento e capitalismo (Bari, 1959). The polemic arising therefrom can be followed in the anthology edited by A. Caracciolo, La formazione dell’Italia industriale (Bari, 1973). In particular see essays by A. Caracciolo, L. Dal Pane and D. Tosi. The basic theme of the polemic substantially coincides with the question of primitive accumulation in Italy, particularly in the post-unification period. In fact, it was only after unitification in conjunction with the industrial revolution and the economic ‘take-off’ that the fundamental elements of primitive accumulation in Italy became quite evident. This also applies to the central question of this research, the formation of a factory proletariat and the prison question.
- 107.
This is precisely one of the central questions raised in the debate referred to in the preceding note.
- 108.
Cf. E. Sereni, Il capitalismo nelle campagne (Torino, 1948) pp. 355 ff. Sereni was one of the chief artificers of a political-theoretical elaboration of the question inspired by Gramsci’s remarks on the matter.
- 109.
For example, on the uprisings in Bologna in 1802, see Candeloro, Storia dell’ Italia moderna, p. 307. Cf. on the general theme of the conquest and organisation of Napoleonic power in Northern Italy, pp. 289–322.
- 110.
Ibid., p. 318.
- 111.
What follows here on the topic of brigandage in Romagna under Napoleonic domination is taken from G. Manzoni, Briganti in Romagna, 1800–1848 (Ravenna) which largely comprises a reproduction of documents. On the question of deserters, notices and warnings are reproduced on pp. 173 ff.
- 112.
This is Hobsbawm’s thesis (cf. The Bandit as Symbol, p. 127). Suffice to record the abundance of folklore inspired by the figure of the social bandit.
- 113.
Cf. the numerous documents reproduced by Manzoni, Briganti in Romagna, pp. 165 ff. The persistence of attempts to do this was also due, of course, to the ambiguous attitude particularly on the part of the lower clergy which was more closely tied to the people in the face of Napoleonic authority.
- 114.
See Manzoni, Briganti in Romagna, p. 94, warning of 7 June 1805.
- 115.
Ibid., p. 119, decree of 21 Nov 1806.
- 116.
Ibid., pp. 153, 194.
- 117.
See above p. 58. It is worth reproducing the letter which the Prefect of the Department of Rubicone used to notify his priests about the new code:
It would please our most Learned Majesty to give to his people of the Kingdom of Italy a penal code. Every parish priest must be provided with a book necessary for the instruction of his parishioners. This is something which conforms to their holy office. On feastdays after a commentary on the Gospel which enlightens men on offences against God and their neighbour and on eternal punishment, they will also be enlightened on crime and its temporal punishments.
Thus the clergy are invited to explain from the altar those penalties threatened by the Code so that everyone is encouraged to avoid the deeds which incur them. The people’s attention must be directed especially to the fourth book, which lists contraventions and police measures. When dealing with a felony or a crime, the inner prompting of conscience shows men the gravity of the evil and the voice of nature calls upon them to abstain therefrom; this does not occur if some contravention is dealt with simply as a police measure. The notion of evil, perceived not intrinsically but with regard to the social order, is directly related to our education and culture. Now, the lower orders do not often recognise this kind of contravention except in terms of the threatened penalties…
I shall watch over those who are mindful of my suggestions and who wish to distinguish themselves by their zeal just as I will take note and inform the Government of those who, by chance, fail to heed so important a suggestion. (Manzoni, Briganti in Romagna, p. 196, 197)
- 118.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, pp. 412 ff. Bernabò- Silorata, Case penali, ch. 7.
- 119.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 416; Bernabò- Silorata, Case penali, ch. 9.
- 120.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 420; Bernabò- Silorata, Case penali, ch. 9.
- 121.
Cf. particularly Petitti di Roreto, Della condizione attuale, pp. 423–34; Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 422; Bernabò-Silorata, Case penali, ch. 9. Comoli Mandracci, Il carcere per la società del Sette- Ottocento, pp. 41–52.
- 122.
As in Izzo, Da Filippo Franci alla riforma Doria, p. 303.
- 123.
See Beltrani Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 424.
- 124.
Ibid., pp. 430 ff.
- 125.
Ibid., pp. 414 ff.; Bernabò-Silorata, Case penali, ch. 8.
- 126.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 413.
- 127.
Ibid., p. 414.
- 128.
Ibid., p. 416.
- 129.
Ibid., pp. 435 ff; Petitti di Roreto, Della condizione attuale, p. 421; Bernabò-Silorata, Case penali, ch. 10.
- 130.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 441; Bernabò- Silorata, Case penali, ch. 10; C. Peri, Cenni sulla riforma del sistema penitenziario in Toscana (Firenze, 1848) reports on this regulation on pp. 15 ff.
- 131.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 440.
- 132.
Ibid., p. 441; Bernabò-Silorata, Case penali, ch. 10.
- 133.
See Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 445.
- 134.
See Firenze, 1859. Peri published a Risposta del cav. Carlo Peri all’opuscolo del dottor Carlo Morelli (Reply by Cavalier Carlo Peri to Dr. Carlo Morelli’s pamphlet) (Firenze, 1860).
- 135.
Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 449.
- 136.
On the ‘idle and vagabond’ at the origins of preventive measures in Italian society, cf. M. Pavarini, ‘Il “socialmente pericoloso” nell’attività di prevenzione’, Rivista italiana di diritto e procedura penale (1975) p. 396.
- 137.
See F. Serantini, Fatti memorabili della banda del Passatore in terra di Romagna (Ravenna, 1973).
- 138.
See Sereni, Il capitalismo nelle campagne, pp. 216–21.
- 139.
See E. Ferri, ‘I contadini mantovani all’Assise di Venezia (1886)’, Difese penali e studi di giurisprudenza (Torino, 1899).
- 140.
See M. Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma, p. 464.
- 141.
Ibid., p. 466.
- 142.
Ibid., pp. 467 ff.; C.I. Petitti di Roreto, Della condizione attuale, p. 420; from F. Volpicella his Delle prigioni e del loro ordinamento (Napoli, 1837); On Volpicella’s work, see D. Palazzo, ‘A proposito di “riforma delle prigioni” nella prima metà del sècolo scorso’, Rassegna di Studi Penitenziari (1970) p. 677; ‘Su alcune speciali prigioni del secolo scorso’, Rassegna di Studi Penitenziari (1971) p. 591.
- 143.
In practice, this whole process developed after unification. But the way was paved beforehand – in this connection the question of prison is exemplary–particularly in Piedmont in its role of guiding state for the ranks of the Italian bourgeoisie which it assumed in the process of unification. What we give here is merely some indication on this. As in the case of penal reform, it would be necessary to proceed to a determinate scientific reconstruction of the way in which the various other institutions connect to the central question of the formation and control of the proletariat. At the moment of unification, the cultural, scientific and ideological patrimony which was to be supportive of the subsequent construction of a capitalist society in Italy had largely been elaborated. Most interesting in this relation is the volume by G. C. Marino La formazione dello spirito borghese in Italia (Firenze, 1974) which is above all based on an analysis of the proceedings of the various Riunioni degli scienziati italiani held during the 1840s.
- 144.
This is exactly what happened in the case of the riunione degli scienziati which Marino above examines.
- 145.
Ibid., pp. 330 ff.
- 146.
Ibid., pp. 345 ff.
- 147.
This relates to the studies by Petitti which we have frequently cited: Della condizione attuale; on the other hand, here Petitti resumed a theme which he dealt with in one of his writings dated 1837 in which he devoted many pages to the question of prisons, Saggio sul buon governo \ della mendicità, degli istituti di beneficienza e delle carceri (Torino, 1837). The work of Cattaneo, Delle carceri was published in Il Politecnico (1840).
- 148.
See Petitti di Roreto, Della condizione attuale, pp. 448 ff. Petitti was an intellectual of European stature in contact with all the best-known theorists and men of government in the field of prison. Moreover, he applied his interest to socio-economic themes of a wide nature: all his work is collected in the Opere scelte, already cited. Though these studies are wide ranging, they always relate to the concrete organisational needs of the Piedmont state.
- 149.
See Petitti di Roreto, Della condizione attuale, pp. 327 ff.
- 150.
Ibid., pp. 361 ff.
- 151.
Ibid., pp. 448 ff.
- 152.
Ibid., pp. 450 ff.
- 153.
In note c. on p. 451, ibid., Petitti reports on a talk he had with a prisoner at a prison run on Auburnian lines in Geneva. This prisoner had previously served a sentence at the bagno penale at Tolone: ‘He said that once he returned to a more moral way of thinking he understood that the rigour of the discipline at the Geneva prison was for his own good; but at first he regretted that he had not committed the second crime in France because in that event he would have been sent to the bagno where, despite the apparent hard life therein, for most it was easier to endure, due to the fresh air one could enjoy, the freer association, the attraction of possible escape, the possibility to consume spirits and the like. He added that, even after he had reformed, he sometimes recalled to mind the better life at the bagno and this stimulated an abhorrence for the prison he now found himself in.’
- 154.
Ibid., pp. 455 ff.
- 155.
See Cattaneo, Delle carceri, pp. 302 ff.
- 156.
See Marino, La forurazione dello spirito borghese, p. 351.
- 157.
In n. 199 on p. 94 above, I cite the passage from Marx in which he makes the connection between solitary confinement and the creation by the isolated individual ‘of perceptible, sensible ghosts’ which represent both ‘the mystery of all pious visions’ and ‘the general form of insanity’ (K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family (Moscow: 1956) p. 245). This looks like the process Cattaneo describes in Delle carceri, p. 239, when he refers to the psychological effectiveness produced by solitary confinement: ‘in the silence men undergo and in the sleep of their passions, advices which have been much derided in the past, words which seem remote from the memory are recalled, religious terror, all the images and memories of good and evil, surge forth before the guilty conscience and become increasingly potent and irresistible each day’ (p. 304). Both Petitti, p. 462 and Marino on pp. 355–6, relate the results of contemporary enquiries into the disastrous effects of the Philadelphian system (suicide and cases of insanity).
- 158.
See Marino, La formazione dello spirito borghese, pp. 362, 363.
- 159.
In this respect, Marino, ibid.
- 160.
Ibid., pp. 364–5.
- 161.
Clearly expressed by Cattaneo thus: ‘unfortunately, the incomplete reforms which modern humanity introduced into prison had deprived this unique penal instrument of any terror. There, the evil loafer found shelter, bed, guaranteed food, light work and whatever company he desired; for many honest workers, burdened with children and for many day labourers, famished amid the fertile countryside, a stay in prison was, unfortunately, a seductive prospect. But the genuine evil-doer will always prefer the filth and discomfort of a promiscuous dungeon, bare floor, chains, whip and all, to strict confinement even if the cell is spacious, bright, well-lit, aired, heated and equipped with all that industrious poverty could desire; for the former leaves him in full possession of his wickedness’ (p. 305).
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Melossi, D. (2018). Genesis of the Prison in Italy. In: The Prison and the Factory (40th Anniversary Edition). Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56590-7_3
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