Francesco Carrara

Who was Francesco Carrara?

Francesco Carrara was an Italian jurist and liberal politician. He was one of the leading criminal law scholars and death penalty abolition advocates in 19th-century Europe.

After studies and a doctorate in Pisa, Carrara practiced law in Florence and Lucca, where he was soon engaged in debates about criminal law reform. In 1848, he was appointed to the chair of criminal law at the University of Lucca, 1859 at Pisa. His principal work, written there, was the ten-volume Programma dal corso di diritto criminale. Synthesising Italian thought in criminal law since Beccaria, it also had significant influence abroad.

As a young politician, Carrara at first followed Mazzini, but came closer to more moderate liberal groups in the 1840s. He helped arrange the accession of Lucca to Tuscany, and, after Italian unification, was elected to Parliament in 1863, 1865 and 1867. There, he was an influential member of the commission preparing the Criminal Code of Italy, the Codice Zanardelli completed in 1889.

Named a senator in 1879, Carrara died at Lucca, where many of his manuscripts remain.