Italian mental hospitals

“Morire di classe. La condizione manicomiale fotografata da Carla Cerati e Gianni Berengo Gardin”, edited by Franca Ongaro Basaglia and Franco Basaglia, Einaudi 1969, was among the first to denounce the inhuman conditions in which inmates in Italian asylums were held. Made with great difficulty, this work contributed to the debate that led in 1978 to the approval of law 180, the closure of asylums and the restoration of personal dignity to psychiatric patients.