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A Genius from the Insane Asylum: Political Pathologies of a Nineteenth-Century Lunatic
Abstract
This article examines the relationship between physician Enrico Morselli and his patient, Giovan Virgilio Antonelli, who he diagnosed as suffering from political insanity. The article examines medical-political etiologies, the understanding of symptoms for a moral disease, as well as fears of contagion and the unique dangers posed by the politically insane in post-Risorgimento Italy.