Giuseppe Villella

Giuseppe Villella (May 2, 1802 – November 16, 1864) was an Italian peasant born in the Calabrian town of Motta Santa Lucia. After his death, the analysis of Villella's skull by the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso led to the discovery of a median occipital dimple—a trait Lombroso claimed was inherited from primates and pointed to criminality being inherently atavistic. Lombroso ultimately credited Villella's skull for spurring an epiphany that led to his development of criminal anthropology.

Life of Giuseppe Villella Little is known about Villella's life. Until recent archival discoveries revealed biographic information on Villella, all that was known about Villella came from Lombroso. Maria Teresa Milicia, professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Padua, conducted archival research on Villella, uncovering new information about his life and revising previous notions about Villella.

Villella was born on 2 May 1802 in Motta Santa Lucia, Calabria, during the reign of Ferdinand IV of Naples to Pietro and Cecilia Rizzo. His father died in 1810, leaving behind Giuseppe and his six siblings: Rosa, Rosaria, Francesca, Maria, Stefano, and Antonio. Throughout his life, Giuseppe himself fathered five children: Maria Teresa, Nicola, Saveria, Francesca, and Angela Rosa. In historical records, Villella's occupation is listed as pecoraro, a shepherd who manages others' sheep, and bracciale, a day laborer usually employed as a seasonal farmhand. On November 16, 1864, Villella succumbed to ulcerative colitis at the Civic Hospital of Pavia. Upon noticing what he called a "median occipital dimple," a depression on the occipital bone near the back of the skull where there would usually be a bony ridge, he had an epiphany: to him, this dimple was evidence of a lower stage of evolution, a trait he had seen in animals like lemurs and rodents, but not humans. From this observation, he extrapolated that the other features he noticed in criminals, including "the enormous jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent superciliary arches, solitary lines in the palms, extreme size of the orbits, handle-shaped or sessile ears found in criminals, savages, and apes,"

Legal battle for the skull

In 2010, the Cesare Lombroso reopened in Turin, sparking a series of protests by Southern Italian political activists. They further argued that the presentation of Villella's skull, as a medium to share Lombroso's outdated atavistic theories, contributed to the existing racism against Southern Italians. The museum argued that the display of Villella's was not a sign of support for Lombroso's theories, but rather a display of history and the development of scientific thought. They also pointed out that the Code of Cultural and Landscape Heritage took precedence over the Mortuary Police Regulations, especially because the Mortuary Police Regulations do not apply to 'cultural property' and artifacts of anthropological interest. The Italian Appellate Court eventually ruled in favor of the museum, upholding its legitimacy and ability to display Villella's remains. In the Court's opinion, the display of Villella's skull is legitimate and legal because Lombroso's theories, although now obsolete and incorrect, shaped 19th and 20th century scientific thought. Consequently, it is possible to simultaneously reject Lombroso's theories while acknowledging that it is in the public's interest to understand the historical, societal, and cultural implications of his theories.

Villella's skull remains in the Cesare Lombroso Museum of Criminal Anthropology in Turin to this day.