The island of Poveglia is one of several islands in the lagoon of Venice, Italy, but the island is not only a land of beauty but also a purulent disfigurement in the glittering ocean. It is known not only as one of the most rugged areas on earth, but also as one of the most demonic and haunted. Nowadays, no-one goes there to harvest the vines. Even the fishermen steer directly away from the island because they fear that they will catch human bones with their fishing nets.
The dark history of the island of Poveglia began in the Roman era when it served to distinguish plague victims from the other peoples of the nation. Hundreds of years later, when the Black Plague spread in Europe, it played that role again. The dead were thrown into huge pits and burned or buried. As the fight against the plague began to be won, people were desperate for the pestilence to end, so those who showed even the slightest sign of illness were taken from their homes and to the island of Poveglia, where they fought, cried and begged for their survival. They were thrown onto masses of rotting bodies and set on fire. Children, women and men were left to die in agony. It is believed that the small island became home to up to 160,000 corpses during that time.
The island has since turned into a stinking area. The soil of the island mingled with the blackened remains of the bodies and formed a dense layer of sticky ash. The heart of the island is actually made up of human remains, which have given the island a reputation, but which seem to have become a heaven for the flourishing vines that are deeply rooted there. Remember this next time you drink Italian wine!
As if the story wasn’t already disturbing enough, it becomes even more terrifying. In 1922, the island became home to a mental hospital with a huge bell tower. In an instant, the patients of this clinic began to report that they saw ghosts of plague victims on the island and that they were kept awake at night when they heard the tormented yawning of the wounded ghosts. As they were already considered brain-diseased by the hospital faculty, these complaints were largely ignored.
To increase the pain of the poor souls living in this island hospital, a doctor there decided to make a name for himself by doing everything he could to find a cure for the mental disorders in his patients. Leucotomies were performed on his poor patients with cruel tools such as hammers, chisels, and hand drills. These victims, as well as those who were not under the special care of the doctor, were taken to the bell tower where they were horribly tormented.
According to mythology, after several years of performing these immoral acts, the evil doctor began to witness the tormented, plague-ridden spirits of the island of Poveglia himself. It is believed that they took him to the bell tower and threw him to the ground. A nurse who witnessed the events said that the fall did not kill him, but that a mist rising from the ground suffocated him. The doctor was walled up in the bell tower of the hospital, and on a quiet night, the bell could be heard ringing all over the bay. The hospital was then closed.
For a while, the island belonged to the Italian government, but later it was sold. This owner left it in the 1960s and was the last to settle there. Recently, a family tried to buy the island and build a holiday home on it, but they pulled up their tents the very first night and refused to mention what had happened. The only information we know is that their children’s faces were opened and had to be sewn together with fourteen stitches.
At present, Poveglia is deserted and tourism to the island is strictly forbidden. From time to time the rushing waves on the coast reveal dried-up human bones.
Many prophets have traveled to the deserted hospital on the island, but each of them was scared to death by what they experienced out there. From time to time, hotheads have avoided the police forces to look around the island, but all those who entered refused to return on the grounds that there was a surly environment of evil, and the tormented moaning and screaming that permeated the island made their stay there unbearable.
The story of a crazy thrill seeker who broke into the island says that upon entering the abandoned hospital, a spiritual voice told him to “leave immediately and never come back“. And they never did.
