In 1871 his first subject was Giuseppe Villella, a notorious Calabrian thief and arsonist. Lombrosso official research work, started with subjects exclusively from the Italian population. His main criminology advanced work subjects were soldiers then he carried out advEd work within Italian prison, comparing mentally ill subjects and criminals. Diana Bretherick, a former London criminal barrister novolist studied Lombroso as her subject criminal mind set (History Extra blog).
Lombroso initial work was known as characterology and classified his theories within positive criminologist perspective. The main concepts supporting positive criminology is the belief of the born criminals and be born guilty of a crime within their mother wombs. Lombroso studied cadavers, seeking physiological reasons to explain criminal behavior to compare different types of criminals. This included facial specific traits from teeth, to facial and as many of those that the cadavers presented with (Jessica Schubert,