Early life and education Andrea Verga was born in
Treviglio (Bergamo) on 30 May 1811, to a modest family. He was the second son of Domitilla Carcano and Giosuè Verga, who worked as a conveyor from
Treviglio to
Milan. As a child, he did not attend elementary school, but due to his mother's religious interest, he was initiated into ecclesiastical studies in the seminary. Consequently, he enrolled at the medical faculty of the
University of Pavia, in November 1830. During the earliest years, he was attracted to lessons of the anatomy teacher
Bartolomeo Panizza, of whom in 1836, after graduation, he became an assistant. In the same period, he participated with
Giulio Carcano,
Cesare Correnti, and other young patriots in the "Strenna Il Presagio", in which he published the short story
La Fatua (1836). The love for poetry, the clear and flowing style, and the taste for the curious were characteristic traits of Verga. These stylistic features are remarkable also in his scientific writings, making him fully part of the Italian tradition of medical-literati. The years of assistantship in
Pavia (1836–1842) were fundamental for him. Assisting Panizza deepened his knowledge about the study of human and pathological anatomy, physiology, comparative anatomy and experimental practice, devoting himself to the study of the nervous system. At the age of twenty-six, he went on an educational trip to German-speaking countries. He was also interested in Panizza's study of comparative anatomy, therefore between 1839 and 1841 he spent long periods of time in
Comacchio, studying the reproduction of eels.
At the beginning of Andrea Verga’s professional career In 1842, he moved to Milan, where he found employment in the private asylum
Villa Antonini (hospice of San Celso), of which in 1847 he was promoted to "assistant director", then beginning his study of mental alienation. He also undertook the practice of general medicine, surgery, and anatomical exercises at the
Ospedale Maggiore, collaborating with the new medical journal of Milan, founded by his friend
Agostino Bertani and directed by Panizza. He participated in the congresses of Italian scientists. During the 1844 Milan convention, he participated in the Natural and civil news on the
Lombardy of
Carlo Cattaneo (whose second volume never came out). He wrote his beliefs about the Stabilimenti Pei Pazzi, a matter he previously discussed in the Gazzetta Medica of Milan with the title of Historical notes on the establishments of the madmen in
Lombardy. While adhering to the ideals of the "
Risorgimento", he did not take part in the
Five Days of 1848 in the newly liberated Milan but was still appointed director of the public asylum of the Senavra by the provisional government. In 1849–1850, following the closure of the University of Pavia, he taught human anatomy in the newly created school of medicine, surgery, and pharmacy in the Ospedale Maggiore. In the following summer of 1850, he was sent by the same hospital to visit asylums in Switzerland and other European countries to study their organization and evaluate a reform of the
Senavra. His experience as an asylum director convinced him more and more of the need to reorganize Italian asylums, transforming them into real tools for the treatment of insanity and into research and teaching centers for the nascent psychiatry, which still did not find space in universities. In 1864, Verga then transformed the psychiatric appendix into an independent journal, the Italian Archive for nervous diseases and more particularly for mental insanities, directing it together with friends and colleagues
Cesare Castiglioni and
Serafino Biffi.
Last years of Andrea Verga’s life In the last years of his life, he studied the physiology of old age and in 1895 founded a Relief Fund for poor alienists and their families. Andrea Verga died in
Milan on 21 November 1895.
Leonardo Bianchi,
Serafino Biffi,
Alexandre Brierre de Boismont,
Gabriele Buccola,
Carlo Cantoni,
Filippo De Filippi,
Camillo Golgi,
Carlo Livi,
Cesare Lombroso,
Paolo Mantegazza,
Scipion Pinel,
Augusto Tamburini,
Augusto Tebaldi,
Tito Vignoli. There are also numerous intellectuals, writers and politicians, including
Vittoria Aganoor,
Raffaello Barber,
Luigi Bodio,
Cesare Cantù,
Giulio Carcano,
Cesare Correnti,
Andrea Maffei,
Tullo Massarani. The archive also includes a substantial core consisting of medical and scientific writings: notes, observations, manuscripts, drafts and other printed material, which testify the path of studies, the period of the assistantship at the chair of anatomy of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Pavia and the subsequent career of the alienist as a doctor and psychiatrist. == The role of Verga in criminal asylum ==