P
OVEGLIA ISLAND – A DUMPING GROUND FOR PLAGUE VICTIMS,
QUARANTINE STATION, ASYLUM HOUSING THE MENTALLY
INSANE AND ALLEGEDLY THE MOST HAUNTED ISLAND IN THE
WORLD.The island of Poveglia sits within the
Venice Lagoon off the Eastern coast
of Northern Italy. As the lagoon waters
lap its shores only two miles from the
remarkable and dazzling palaces of
the Grand Canal, it stands empty, a
crumbling collection of abandoned
buildings left to rot. Having served
many unpleasant purposes over the years,
this island is famous for its macabre
past and of course, its alleged hauntings.
Locals will tell you Poveglia is an “island
of ghosts,” and those who visit it are said
to be cursed. Its dark reputation can be
traced to a history filled with death and
despair. It’s no wonder the tortured souls
of those who died on the island are said
to linger. Legends and rumours about
Poveglia are nearly as pervasive as
the weeds, and they read like a horror
story. Over several decades, hundreds
of thousands of dead and living Black
Plague victims were brought here across
centuries, corpses piled up in pits wereburned in large fires. Legend has
it that the soil is 50% human ash.Another one of the Poveglia legends
surrounds the psychiatrist who ran
the mental hospital, widely known
as a butcher and torturer. The
demented doctor who worked at the
island’s mental hospital in the early
20th century was notorious for his
experiments on patients, stories so
shocking even 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
anaesthesia or concern for sanitation.He supposedly saved his darkest
experiments for special patients, whom
he took to the hospital’s bell tower, thescreams from those being tortured
could be heard across the island.Karma eventually caught up with the
doctor, according to the story, he began
to suffer his own mental torture and
was haunted by the island’s multitude
of ghosts. Eventually, he lost his mind,
climbed to the top of the bell tower and
flung himself to his death. There are
varying accounts of his death, some
say he may have actually been pushed,
either by an angry island spirit or by some
of his furious patients. Supposedly a
nurse witnessed his fall, claiming that he
initially survived, but that a ghostly mist
overcame his body and choked him to
death.The island is a bit of an eyesore to
the locals, the legends and stories of
hauntings run so deep that it is near
impossible to find a boat willing to take
you anywhere near it. The governmentPOVEGLIA
ISLAND
By MJ Dickson