SANTO Stefano, an uninhabited ancient prison island, stands alone, almost forgotten off the coast of Naples in Italy.

For centuries all sorts of outlaws, assassins, bandits and Mafiosi serving a life sentence were confined to this tiny jet-black rock in the middle of the sea, topped by fluorescent green vegetation. It was a hellish place, from which nobody could escape. The few who tried, drowned.

Today it’s a private island with a ghost village adjacent to a spooky prison fortress that belongs to Italy’s state. Both are crumbling to the ground.

The owner of the atoll, who has invited me to join him on a rare visit, is Orazio Ciardo, a businessman from Naples who inherited it from his father.

Oh, and Ciardo is a nudist.

“I come from a family of nudists and I believe that body contact with nature is crucial in finding your inner self and bringing social barriers down. That’s why I love camping here under starry skies with my friends. Of course, naked. You’ve got anything against nudism? And do you believe in free love?” he jokingly asks. Um, no.

When we get to the jail, it’s a massive, freaky structure shaped like a theatre with rusty prison cells.

media_camera The ancient prison on the island of Santo Stefano sits in ruin. Picture: Silvia Marchetti.

The prison, built in the 1770s by the Kings of Naples, ensured a strict, centralised control of all cells. In the middle rises a church to symbolise the spiritual dominion over souls.

It’s divided into three floors with 33 cells each. None look towards the sea, and that was the biggest torture. Practically Dante’s Inferno. Three signs greet visitors: This is a place of sufferance. This is a place of expiation. This is a place of redemption.

media_camera The central prison church watched over the inmates. Picture: Silvia Marchetti.

media_camera An abandoned ghost village surrounds the jail. Picture: Silvia Marchetti.

But Ciardo has a dream: “I want to resuscitate the isle by preserving its untouched beauty. That’s why I’d like to turn it either into a nudist paradise where guests can stay in tents and suntan on volcanic black platforms carved out of the cliffs, or sell it over to someone who shares my views and has the same sensibility. Santo Stefano is a piece of untouched paradise and I want nobody to corrupt its pure nature”.

An abandoned colonial villa also sits on the estate. The pink walls are buried by the Mediterranean bush. Everything looks dead. No running water. Not even the mulberry tree in the front porch has fruit.

“For a couple of years a hunter from nearby Ischia island had leased the villa out and lived here by himself, shooting all the quails he came across. In the past the isle was also used as a hunting domain by an Italian duke looking to kill time”.

media_camera The abandoned villa on Santo Stefano was once home to a hunter, who shot all his food. Picture: Silvia Marchetti.

“I have mixed plans for this island,” says Ciardo. “Over 28ha are mine, while just two belong to the state and that’s the jail which must not be confused with my property,” he stresses, pointing at the hellish building where inmates were tortured up until 1965.

Ciardo is against turning his estate, and therefore the entire isle, into a luxury resort for Russian and Chinese billionaires.

“That would be its end. The island must remain more or less like it is”.

It’s wild and hard to get around, with a path only suitable for donkeys to bring in food supplies and equipment. But it’s easy to see why Ciardo wants the island to remain untouched. The atoll’s protected marine park is swarming with giant groupers and barracudas. And the seabed is full of archaeological wonders and Second World War wrecks.

media_camera The Roman natural jacuzzi. One day you could be getting nude here, just like the ancient Romans. Picture: Silvia Marchetti.

Jutting out from the island is a natural jacuzzi carved from magma rock. Apparently it’s where ancient Romans loved to skinny dip.

Ancient traditions die hard.

media_camera The solitary Santo Stefano island, where nudists could soon run free. Picture: Silvia Marchetti.

Originally published as From hellish prison to nudist’s paradise?