During the Seventies the psychiatric hospital of Arezzo, by virtue of the reformatory project of Agostino Pirella, became a leading centre for developments in the field of psychiatry. There, important innovatory principles were established even before the approval of law no. 180 of May 13, 1978. The process started in 1971 when Agostino Pirella, psychiatrist and colleague of Franco Basaglia, took up the management of the hospital. The common work of Pirella, doctors, nurses and the local policy makers, allowed the Arezzo area and its surroundings to tackle, with high expertise, the process for the correct implementation of the new law. It represented a model for all the other Italian regions that had not started any new reformatory measure yet.