Aldo Franchini and Giacomo Canepa: two precursors of modern Clinical Criminology

The aim of this paper is to analyze the methodological approach of two great masters,Aldo Franchini and Giacomo Canepa, who are considered among the most eminent scholars of legal medicine and criminology in the second half of the 1900s. From the examination of important clinical investigations carried out on offenders, it emerges that it is essential always to evaluate the criminal event within the specific context and path of life - unique and personal - of the offender. In this research and reconstruction, the legal expert has to connect the different pieces that, although sometimes in an apparently disordered and confused manner, compose the path of life of the criminal, avoiding schematic rigidity and banalizations.The proposed methodology constitutes a precious heredity and the teaching of these masters is more relevant than ever for all the scholars who approach the study of man and his behavior.