1905. 8vo, pp. 281, [2]; with 15 engraved plates, 13 engraved figures within the text, and a number of further tables and figures (three plates with rough hand-colouring, with small pencil ‘filling in’ on one further plate); paper browned throughout due to paper quality, with some occasional soiling and staining, gutter cracked and exposed at p. 162 but holding firm, final two upper corners folded and a little fragile, and with repair to tear on final verso; uncut, and recased in the original printed wrappers (dated 1906), with tidemark along upper spine, paper repair to upper corner and joint of rear wrapper, covers a little spotted and soiled, extremities a little dog-eared; with authorial inscription (somewhat illegible) on half-title; despite faults, a presentable copy of a scarce and fragile work. First edition, and a presentation copy, of this detailed illustrated treatise on the history and classification of tattoos by Abel De Blasio (1858-1945), professor of criminal anthropology at the University of Naples and director of the first scientific institute at the police headquarters, the Ufficio Antropometrico della Regia Questura di Napoli.
A student of both Cesare Lombrosco (1835-1909) and Giustiniano Nicolucci (1819-1904), De Blasio initially studied pharmaceutical chemistry and natural sciences, though developed strong interests in botany, anthropology, criminology, palaeontology, and ethnology. De Blasio collaborated closely with the Neapolitan police force, and was to employ similar descriptive, photographic, and anthropometric methods as those being implemented and practised in France by Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914). He was to publish over two hundred works and a number of subjects, though is particularly noted for his work on the Camorra criminal fraternity, and for his work on tattoos both from an ethnological viewpoint, and with regards to criminal and prison subculture. Influenced by Lombrosco’s work at the Turin department of Criminal Anthropology, in 1897 he published ‘Usi e Costumi dei Camorristi’, in which he catalogued the tattoos of over 280 ‘Camorristi’. Through his research, he classified and analysed the motivations and meanings of skin markings, and developed a classification system, identifying tattoos of love, revenge, nickname, gang rank and affiliation, contempt, profession, beauty, age, ethnicity, religious, symbolic, hereditary, and obscene, with the location on the body also of significance. In the present work he expands upon his previous studies, also discussing the global culture of tattooing in America, Oceania, India and Europe. As with similar anthropological works of the time, indeed those of his mentor Nicolucci, his theories on race are complex and problematic.