Il carcere tra centro e periferia

Prisons, the symbol of the execution of punishment as suppression and limitation of individual freedom, are such a constant presence in the urban landscape that they hide their recent origins. Prisons are born as custodial institutions only at the end of the 700 with the precise goal to guarantee the social order upset by the multiple changes induced by the industrial revolution and by the American and French revolutions. From the architectural point of view, the structure that best embodies this disciplinary will is the Panopticon of Bentham (1791), a book that has inspired much of the Italian prison heritage, often located in the heart of the city as an anomalous peripheral area. At the end of this lemma, we will examine the case of San Vittore in Milan, of which the most important events will be retraced, the succession of the different populations held there, the role played in local and national history.