Poveglia Island: Hell in Italy
In romantic Venice, there are also
mystic places.
The small island of Poveglia, which is
located between the Lido and Venice
in the Venetian Lagoon, is considered
one of the most haunted places in
Italy.
This history begins at the dawn of the
Roman Empire when on the island
were brought the victims of plague.
They wanted to isolate ill people from
society and liquidate the threat of an
epidemic.
In the 14th
century, during
the
second
plague,
or
Black
Death,
on
Poveglia
Island
were
brought all ill
venetians,
where
ill
patients died in
terrible agony.
People
were
buried in a
large
mass
grave.
The dead people were not buried; the
bodies were simply burned, so now
half the soil of the Island consists of
human ashes. In total around 160
thousand people on the island died.
In 1922, a psychiatric hospital was
opened on the island. It is the time
when the nightmare began here — the
patients complained of strong
headaches and at night they saw
ghosts of dead people. Patients have
heard wild cheers and screams.
Many people in Venice said that the
main doctor of this hospital was
unhealthy and experimented on the
mentally ill — testing forbidden
medicine and using acute medical
methods on them, and under the bell
tower of hospital carried out
lobotomies using improvised facilities
— chisels, hammers and drills.
According to local legends, the doctor
soon started to see the ghosts of
Poveglia, and then he became mad
and jumped from the hospital tower.
In 1968 Poveglia Island was finally
abandoned, nobody lives there now.
The Bell Tower of the hospital is only a
landmark and even fishermen try to
stay away from the damned Island —
afraid to catch human bones instead
of fish.