The prison of Regina Coeli : a laboratory of identity in the Post-Risorgimento Italy

摘要

In my thesis I am studying the prison of Regina Coeli in Rome. Completed in 1892, it occupies the space of the convent after which it was named: the convent of Santa Maria Regina Coeli. The particular prison was built in the aftermath of the Italian unification when national identity was still formulated and the economy industrialized. At the same period, the discussion on prison architecture was shifting from an interest in the panopticon-centered structures to the architecture of the cell. Penitentiaries were transformed from sites of mere constrain, to sites of correction, to later develop into laboratories of identity. Along with the research on the typical cell, the field of criminology was objectifying the criminal body, in pursuit of the delinquent type. Although rarely documented, Regina Coeli was built in this transition before modernity appeared in the structure of the penitentiary institutions.