Insanity and criminal justice in Italy at the end of the 19th century

Abstract

The Italian penal code of 1889 introduced the concept of “mental infirmity” to circumscribe the hypotheses
of non-punishability linked to the lack of consciousness or freedom of one's acts at the time the criminal
action was committed. The practical application of this rule required energetic intervention by the
jurisprudence of legitimacy to circumscribe the exemption from punishment to the mere existence of
pathological states and exclude it from passionate states.