Portale della cultura italiana

The problem with prison rehabilitation as discovered during the second half of the 19th century, and the studies carried out progressively on the figure of the “delinquent” man, brought about the birth of museums dedicated to the phenomenon of criminality, and to ancient torture instruments, facilities which where originally nearly always connected to universities and police headquarters. The opening of the first Criminal Museum of Rome dates back to the 1931 at the 17th century prison of the New Prisons, in Via Giulia. The layout takes up the ground floor, with a number of different themed sections: crime, punishments, security measures, a section dedicated to historical documentation. In 1968, the site was designated a different function, so the museum artifacts were housed in the warehouses in the penitentiary Regina Coeli, while waiting for a new collection. In 1975 the museum, which changed its name to the Museum of Criminology, was set up in the Palazzo del Gonfalone, a building constructed as a juvenile correctional facility and subsequently abandoned as it was too small to hold the inmates it was required to house. The building was then purchased by the Penitentiary Adminis...