Poveglia – The Haunted Italian Island. Much has been said and written about this island. It is said that the island was used as a lazaretto for plague sufferers, and the dead were burned and scattered on the island.
It is said that countless people met such a fate and that their spirits still roam the island.
This legend is kept alive by the residents of Venice, who carefully avoid the island considered cursed. But the story does not end here…
The History
Around 1900, a psychiatric hospital for the mentally ill was established on Poveglia; however, rather than a place of rehabilitation, it became a place where patients were abandoned in a kind of exile.
Legend has it that in 1930, a doctor on the island was engaged in strange and cruel experiments on patients, aware that no one would care.
One of these experiments was so macabre that it drove the doctor himself insane, leading him to throw himself from the asylum’s tower.
The Venetians claim that sometimes it is possible to hear the tolling of Poveglia’s bells, even though they were removed years ago, and that numerous restless souls still wander the island.
Two well-known American TV shows on Ghostbusters have dedicated significant attention to Poveglia Island, creating a myth in the distant States. So much so that five young men from Colorado, all under twenty, decided to give themselves a thrilling adventure by spending an entire night on Poveglia.
They were transported to the island by a taxi with Ghostbusters equipment, then they bid farewell to the sailor, asking him to pick them up the next morning.
Shortly after midnight, a sailing boat returning to port from the Malamocco canal heard them scream: “Ghosts, ghosts!” The skipper called the firefighters, who immediately rushed to their aid and rescued them.
The five later told reporters that they had had a “close encounter” with the island’s ghosts, heard voices and moans, infernal noises coming from the darkness of the night…
In a panic, they left their equipment behind and fled to the dock, screaming like damned souls until the firefighters took them away from the cursed island.
……. and you dark souls, would you have the courage to spend a night on Poveglia Island?
