If you believe in the idea of lingering souls, then the creepy island of Poveglia is somewhere you should give a wide berth.
Throughout its recorded history, the small, six-hectare island has had a dark past. Just off the coast of Venice, it is considered to be one of the most haunted places in Italy. It’s clear to see why.
Back, before we knew how to deal with huge, catastrophic outbreaks, there were places such as the creepy Poveglia island. They were utilized to separate the infected from the healthy.
In 1793, the island, which had enjoyed a period of calm and prosperity up until that point, was visited by two ships carrying the plague. From then on, the island was a quarantine zone. As the plague spread, the remote nature of the island made it the ideal place to send all people from Venice and surrounding Italian areas with the deadly infection.
An Island of Human Ash
The number of plague victims grew and grew, and the creepy island became full of the dead and dying. There is a rumour in the area that Poveglia Island is 50% human ash due to the number of bodies burned there. However, research suggests otherwise.
Over 100,000 people on the small island fell prey to the plague. However, due to the overwhelming numbers, they weren’t burned. Instead, they were simply dumped in plague pits. This hardly takes away from how creepy the Island is.
After the plague, the island never managed to return to its glory days. Rather than being turned into a Venice adjacent pleasure island, it became the location for a mental asylum. The wails of the restless dead were joined by the moans of people locked in the horrors of a 20th-century psychiatric ward.
Our understanding of mental health in the 20th century was barbaric. It was the era of lobotomies, endless incarceration, and disturbing experiments. The creepy island was home to many of the unwell. There is a wealth of stories about the disturbing events that took place there.
Now, the creepy island stands empty. Visits by the public aren’t allowed, and the buildings that stand over the decaying corpses of tens of thousands are falling into ruin. There have been attempts to sell it, but people are understandably hesitant. Its history is just too creepy.