15 h 1 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the signs of brilliance are also, in one doctor's eyes, signs of illness?
In The Man of Genius, Italian physician Cesare Lombroso asks whether exceptional talent belongs to the same family as mental disease. He gathers case notes, anecdotes and measurements about poets, painters, composers, scientists and thinkers. Their minds—and their bodies—become evidence for his controversial claim.
Lombroso looks for physical clues to genius and draws a bold link between inspiration and epilepsy. He also considers how society responds to the new and strange. Read as a historical document rather than a reliable account of the mind, this study reveals a fascinating, flawed attempt to measure human brilliance.
What you’ll discover
- The mind under examination Follow a physician's effort to explain extraordinary talent through observation, case notes and measurement.
- Brilliance beside illness Explore Lombroso's central claim without mistaking his theory for an established truth about creativity.
- Clues in the body See how Lombroso treats physical traits as evidence in his search for signs of genius.
- Inspiration as a fit Examine the link he draws between epilepsy, unusual states of mind and bursts of creative energy.
- Genius meets resistance Look beyond the individual to Lombroso's account of society's response to new and strange ideas.
Who will love it
For readers who love the history of psychiatry, the idea of the mad artist, and debates about creativity, with case notes on poets, painters, composers, scientists and thinkers.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A doctor asks what genius really is
- Genius and madness share the same signs
- The body of the genius is marked
- Inspiration looks like a kind of fit
- Society resists the new and the strange
- How the theory fared and what remains
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L’uomo di genio
by Cesare Lombroso · 1888
Lombroso examines poets, painters and thinkers to ask whether genius is a healthy mind or close kin to illness.
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In short
The Man of Genius is a study by the Italian physician Cesare Lombroso. It first appeared in Italian in 1888 and was soon translated into English and other languages.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A doctor asks what genius really is
Lombroso trained as a physician in Italy and spent much of his career in asylums, prisons and hospitals. He believed that the study of human beings should rest on observation and measurement, not on philosophy alone. This was the spirit of positivism, the nineteenth-century faith that every part of life could be explained by natural science. His earlier book on the criminal had claimed that many offenders could be recognised by physical traits, and that these traits pointed to an inherited, backward type.
In The Man of Genius he asks whether the same lens can be turned upward. Before him, many writers had treated genius as a gift from heaven or as a pure triumph of will. Lombroso wants to treat it as a natural fact that a doctor can examine, like a fever or a deformity. He therefore gathers facts about the lives, bodies and habits of famous people and looks for patterns.
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What is The Man of Genius about?
It is a nineteenth-century study in which Cesare Lombroso argues that genius is closely related to mental illness. He supports this with many examples of poets, artists and thinkers, and with details about their bodies, habits and family histories.
When was The Man of Genius written?
Lombroso first published it in Italian in 1888, and it was soon translated into English and other languages. It belongs to the late nineteenth-century positivist movement, which tried to explain human life by natural science.
Is Lombroso's theory of genius and madness true?
Not as he stated it. Modern scientists reject his ideas of degeneration and bodily signs of talent. Some research does study links between creativity and mood disorders, but the findings are modest and debated.
The author
Cesare Lombroso
1835–1909 · Italian psychiatrist and criminologist
Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) was an Italian psychiatrist, physician, and criminologist. He was born in Verona and died in Turin, where he taught at the university. He wrote Criminal Man, first published in 1876, and The Man of Genius, which appeared in English in 1891.
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