Callisto Grandi, known in his town as Carlino, was a young artisan of Incisa in Val d'Arno, in the province of Florence, in Tuscany. Between 1873 and 1875 four children disappeared from the town. In 1875, after a fifth child was saved, Grandi, then 24, was identified as the man responsible and arrested. He was tried before a court and a popular jury, found sane by his judges and sentenced to twenty years of hard labor. The sentence is only part of why the case is remembered. Grandi's trial became a public argument over whether a man accused of killing children was a criminal or a madman, and over whether the law or medical science had the right to judge him.
Grandi was known in Incisa as Carlino, and he appears in some accounts as Carlo. He was 24 when he was arrested in 1875 and worked as an artisan in the town. The historian Patrizia Guarnieri, of the University of Florence, wrote a book on the case, published in Italian by Laterza in 2006. Her summary describes a man whose appearance and behavior seemed to match the physical traits that the criminal anthropology of Cesare Lombroso tied to criminals. That is a statement about how contemporaries saw him, and it is not evidence of anything he did.
A 2016 article in Blitz Quotidiano by Marco Benedetto says Grandi told the court at his trial that he had been mocked and humiliated in the town, and it lists the nicknames he said he had endured over his appearance.
Between 1873 and 1875 four children disappeared in Incisa in Val d'Arno. In 1875 a fifth child was saved, and Grandi was arrested. The Italian Ministry of Culture's catalog entry for his portrait gives the charges as the murder of four children and the attempted murder of a fifth.
Guarnieri's study is organized around the stages the case went through: the facts and the preliminary investigation, then public opinion and its response to Grandi, then the trial, then what she calls the psychiatric case.
The case drew heavy press coverage. Laterza, the publisher of Guarnieri's Italian edition, describes the proceedings as involving medical expert reports, a hearing before a court, a popular jury and an eager public, and intense attention in the newspapers. The question that dominated both the courtroom and the press was whether the accused was a criminal or insane, and whether the law or science had the right to judge him.
Grandi was tried on the charge of killing four children and attempting to murder a fifth. The medical question was whether he was legally responsible for what he had done. Enrico Morselli, a psychiatrist who directed the Santa Croce asylum in Macerata, sat on the medical commission that assessed him, according to the Ministry of Culture's catalog. A doctoral study of Morselli's career lists Carlo Grandi among the cases on which Morselli offered his psychiatric expertise, alongside the brigand Giuseppe Musolino and the Murri siblings.
The judges decided that Grandi was sane, Blitz Quotidiano reports, and he was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor, in Italian lavori forzati. The date of the verdict is not on record.
A portrait of Grandi, an albumen print from Enrico Morselli's collection, is listed in the Ministry of Culture's General Catalogue of Cultural Heritage, which dates it to about 1877.
Blitz Quotidiano reported in 2016 that Grandi was confined to an asylum as soon as he was released and that he died there in 1911. The date of and reason for that confinement are not on record.
The year of the trial and the name of the court are not on record, and neither is a separate verdict for each of the four children. Blitz Quotidiano gives the period of the killings as 1873 to 1875 but also refers to the second half of the 1880s, which conflicts with the 1875 arrest. Grandi's own account of mockery in the town is his statement at trial, not a finding of the court.
Between 1873 and 1875: four children disappear from Incisa in Val d'Arno.
1875: a fifth child is saved and Grandi, aged 24, is arrested; the charges are the murder of four children and the attempted murder of a fifth.
Date not on record: trial before a court and a popular jury; the judges find him sane; sentence of twenty years of hard labor.
About 1877: the albumen portrait in Enrico Morselli's collection is made.
1911: Grandi dies in an asylum, according to a 2016 news article.
2006: Guarnieri's book on the case is published by Laterza.