Portugal— Tattoo scenes & cities

In Portugal, tattoo history runs through forensic medicine. In Lisbon, Rodolfo Xavier da Silva, director of the Institute of Legal Medicine, followed Lombroso's theory linking tattoos and crime and gathered hundreds of records and tattooed skins. In 2017, the MUDE museum displayed 61 skin fragments taken from autopsied bodies.

These tattoos, dated 1910 to 1940, evoke the Bairro Alto, Alfama and Mouraria districts, sailors and fado: an "Amor Mãe", football club emblems, the three shepherd children of Fátima. The tools were rudimentary: Indian ink, needles and burnt matchsticks, then electric machines, sometimes improvised from a ballpoint pen.