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When we hear Venice, Italy we always think of beauty and romance and a wish to go there, but in the lagoons of Venice in the shimmering sea there is a place not abandoned just by humans but it seems like God forget this place too…

The island of Poveglia, the island of madness, regarded as one of the most haunted and evil places on the Earth.

There are no visits, it’s illegal to go there but who will like to go, except some ghost hunters and thrill seekers on their own risk, not just by the government of Italy but from the dark forces on the island too…

A place where even Fishermans steer away from the shores for fear of catching human bones in their nets.

The dark history of the island goes back during the Roman Era when Poveglia served as a plague quarantine station for Venice from 1793 to 1814, the island was used to house victims of the plague in order to protect the rest of the country, forcing inflicted people to live and die in isolation.

Then, during the medieval era, when the plague returned and killed off nearly two-thirds of Europe’s population, Poveglia was again called upon to take in the sick and dying.

The dead were dumped into large pits and buried or burned. As the plague tightened its grip, the population began to panic and those residents showing the slightest sign of sickness were taken from their homes and to the island of Poveglia kicking and screaming and pleading.

They were thrown onto piles of rotting corpses and set ablaze. Men, women, children… all left to die in agony. It’s estimated that the tiny island saw as many as 160,000 bodies during this time.

Dead bodies quickly began to overcrowd the island…some rumors state that 50% of the soil is composed of the remains of the dead.

The soil of the island combined with the charred remains of the bodies dumped there creating a thick layer of sticky ash. The core of the island is literally human remains that have given the island a loathsome reputation.

But this is just a part of the creepy history as if the story is not disturbing and scary enough it’s getting even worse…

In 1922 when the island became home to a psychiatric hospital complete with a large and very impressive bell tower few people were very surprised. However, the arrival of droves of mentally disturbed patients to the island only served to enrich the legend of it being a place to avoid.

Photo credit-True British Metal

The patients of this hospital immediately began to report that they would see ghosts of plague victims on the island and that they would be kept up at night hearing the tortured wails of the suffering spirits. Because they were already considered mad by the hospital staff, these complaints were largely ignored.

The isolation and privacy offered by the island also allowed for disreputable scientists and doctors to do as they pleased to their patients. Reports of widespread abuse and heinous experiments began to float back to the mainland, bringing with them the screams of the tortured souls trapped there.



One doctor there decided to make a name for himself by experimenting on his subjects all to find a cure for insanity.

His notorious experiments on patients are still shocking when told today. For instance, he believed that lobotomies were a great way to treat and cure mental illness, so he performed lobotomies on numerous patients, usually against their will.

The procedures were heinously wicked, and painful, too. He used hammers, chisels, and drills with no anesthesia or concern for sanitation. He supposedly saved his darkest experiments for special patients, whom he took to the hospital’s bell tower. Whatever he did in there, the screams from those being tortured could be heard across the island.

According to the lore, after many years of performing these immoral acts, the evil doctor began to see the tortured plague-ridden spirits of Poveglia Island himself. It is said that they led him to the bell tower where he jumped (or was thrown) to the grounds below.

The fall did not kill him according to a nurse who witnessed the event, but she related that as he lay on the ground writhing in pain, a mist came up out of the ground and choked him to death. It’s rumored that the doctor is bricked up in the hospital bell tower and on a still night, the bell can be heard tolling across the bay. The hospital closed down in 1968.

Many believe that hundreds of thousands of tormented souls still remain trapped on Poveglia Island. From the massive influx of plague victims who were forced onto the island to those who were tortured at the mental hospital that was once stationed there, a sense of sorrow and suffering continues to permeate from the island to this day.

Today Poveglia is uninhabited and tourism on the island is strictly forbidden.

Several psychics have visited the island the abandoned hospital, but all of them left scared to death of what they had sensed there.

With more than 100,000 plague victims and mental patients buried on the small island of Poveglia, it is no surprise that human bones continue to wash up on its shores.

The story of Poveglia is more than just a script for a horror movie, its something that will remain in your memories and haunt you…because it’s real.

The bell tower where a mad doctor conducted tortures on patients inside. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

The chapel Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Picture: Ella Pellegrini

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