Lorenzo Tenchini (1852–1906) was born in Brescia and studied Medicine in Pavia where he became lecturer of Anatomy in 1880. In 1881, at the age of 29 years, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the

University of Parma The University of Parma ( it, Università degli Studi di Parma, UNIPR) is a public university in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is organised in nine departments. As of 2016 the University of Parma has about 26,000 students. History During the ...

. In this city Tenchini began to study the morphology of the brains of criminals, later founding the "Museum of Criminal Anthropology". He collected brains of delinquents and their wax masks and studied the relationship between

neuroanatomy Neuroanatomy is the study of the structure and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defin ...

and

criminality In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

. He promoted the building of a lunatic asylum in the province of Parma and was interested in social medicine, including the pellagra scourge in Northern Italy. Tenchini conducted important research work in the field of neuropsychiatry and anthropology. He was one of the founders of

criminal anthropology Anthropological criminology (sometimes referred to as criminal anthropology, literally a combination of the study of the human species and the study of criminals) is a field of offender profiling, based on perceived links between the nature of a ...

in Italy and sought to explain criminal behavior through the study of neuroanatomy.

References

* * 1852 births 1906 deaths Italian anatomists University of Pavia alumni Academic staff of the University of Parma 19th-century Italian scientists Italian criminologists {{criminologist-stub