Francesco Carrera

Portrait of Francesco Carrara.

Francesco Carrara (Lucca, September 18, 1805 - January 15, 1888), Italian jurist and professor.

He was the greatest representative of the classical school of Italian criminal law and distinguished himself for his opposition to the death penalty.

After graduating and receiving his doctorate in Lucca, Carrara was a professor of Criminal and Commercial Law in his hometown (until 1859) and later obtained the Chair of Criminal Law at the University of Pisa.

His main work, in ten volumes, was Programma del corso di diritto criminale, which had a notable influence abroad. His Programma recorded his eleven years of teaching experience in Lucca, and was printed for use by students when he obtained the chair in Pisa.

As a young man, Carrara was a follower of Giuseppe Mazzini, but in the 1940s he became closer to more moderate liberal groups. He was one of the few liberals from his hometown who did not oppose the annexation of the Duchy of Lucca to that of Tuscany, nor the subsequent Italian unification process. He was elected deputy in the Italian Parliament in 1863, 1865 and 1867. Carrara considered the end of the Duchy as a first step towards peninsular unity and also considered it reprehensible that Duke Carlos Luis de Borbón, in 1845, had not granted pardon to five sentenced to death, allowing the macabre spectacle of an execution by guillotine to take place in Lucca. It is no coincidence that to solemnize the annexation of Lucca, the Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopoldo II abolished capital punishment in his State, following the advice of Giovanni Carmignani and Carrara..

He had an influence on the drafting of the first Italian Penal Code and the subsequent Penal Code of 1889, known in Italy as the Zanardelli Code.

He was one of the main exponents of the Classical School of Italian law.

Named a senator on May 15, 1876, Carrara died in Lucca, where many of his manuscripts are still found and the street where the house in which he lived and died is named in his honor.

Bibliography about Carrara in Spanish

• Nodier Agudelo Betancur, The legal-penal thinking of Carrara, Bogotá, Editorial Temis, 1988
• Francisco P. Laplaza, Francisco Carrara: Master of Criminal Law, Buenos Aires, Depalma, 1950

Main Source

Translation and adaptation of the entry on Francesco Carrara in the Italian Wikipedia.