La devianza femminile e la “psichiatria dell’uomo sociale”. La riflessione di Silvio Venturi, “medico di matti a Girifalco e deputato a Montecitorio”

This essay examines the thinking of Silvio Venturi, director of the Girifalco asylum, professor of psychiatry in Naples and member of parliament. In the particular political and economic climate of the second half of the nineteenth century, the intent to delineate certain of the parallels between the attributes of the female sex role and the characteristics of female deviance was characterised by original research and close comparisons in the complex intertwining of the relationship between criminal law, psychiatry, anthropology, criminology, sociology and history