Physiognomy's New Clothes – Blaise Aguera y Arcas – Medium

In 1844, a laborer from a small town in southern Italy was put on trial for stealing "five ricottas, a hard cheese, two loaves of bread […] and two kid goats". The laborer, Giuseppe Villella, was reportedly convicted of being a brigante (bandit), at a time when brigandage -- banditry and state insurrection -- was seen as endemic. Villella died in prison in Pavia, northern Italy, in 1864. Villella's death led to the birth of modern criminology. Nearby lived a scientist and surgeon named Cesare Lombroso, who believed that brigantes were a primitive type of people, prone to crime.