Narratives on solitary confinement and Italian ‘primacy’ in transatlantic perspective (eighteenth–nineteenth century)

This article examines the role of the Catholic and Italian legacy in the transnational public debate on prison reform during the first half of the nineteenth century. The hegemony of the Philadelphia model of ‘solitary confinement’ in contemporary discourse has long obscured the connections between this model and the ‘cellular confinement’ experiments of eighteenth-century Italian states, particularly the houses of correction in Milan and Rome.The emergence of a narrative asserting an Italian – later specifically Roman – ‘primacy’ in the origins of penal confinement developed across different punitive contexts and regimes, including Protestant and Catholic European networks as well as American Quakers. The invocation of Italian precedents relied on a range of rhetorical strategies aimed at legitimizing the ‘modern penitentiary’.Focusing on the synchronicity and circulation of texts (essays, travel accounts, and newspaper articles) the article highlights the adaptability and flexibility of these narratives in shaping a prison social imaginary.