Featured Image Credit: Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images
Topics: World News, Travel
Britt Jones
An uninhabited 17-acre island is a haunting sight off the coast of Italy, and once you know the history, you’ll think twice about wanting to set foot on it.
We have covered a range of creepy places, but this one might top the list.
From Halloween attractions to shops that take it too far... but the Poveglia island is nothing like you’ve ever heard of before.
The Italian government offered the location for sale in April this year to reduce the country’s public debt, and for many, this was a tough sale to ponder over.
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On the one hand, it’s a lot of land to do with whatever you want, but on the other... well, it’s seriously so creepy that visitors can’t even visit.
Previously, it was called the 'island of madness' and 'hell', and is probably one of the most haunted places in the world.
Before anyone could buy it, they’d have to look at its history and see if it’s worth it.
For example, in the 14th Century, it caused a major conflict between the Venetians and the Genoese, as per The Independent, and then in the 18th century, it was sealed off and used to house and quarantine plague victims and even sicker doctors.
From the 20th Century, the island became home to a mental hospital in 1922, where a doctor experimented on his patients, using things like lobotomies to incapacitate them.
Scarily, he went on to take his own life by throwing himself off the tower as he claimed to have been tortured by ghosts in the area.
The hospital shut its doors in 1968, and the land has been desolate since that time.
It was then made unvisitable to guests, as the Italian government stepped in to prevent anyone from setting foot on the island.
Because of its scary history, supernatural investigators have been rife on the island, searching for signs of spirits, namely the alleged plague victim’s ghost known as Little Maria.
Obviously, nobody would be mad enough to buy the land... or would they?
As it turns out, Venetian activists will now use part of the Poveglia island to turn it into a public park, where locals and visitors will be allowed to lounge.
The Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for Everyone) group explained it had received permission from the Italian government to turn it into a lagoon park starting 1 August this year.
This comes after campaigners petitioned to save the land from becoming privatised, with them saying they want it to be a ‘public lagoon park open to all’ and managed through ‘practices of subsidiarity and active participation.’
Patrizia Veclani, a founder of the group, told Altreconomia that Poveglia per Tutti will build an ‘accessible and safe landing place’ and find ‘a way to reach the island without overtaking it with tourism.’
It could even be a way to offload Venice, which sees more tourism than it can handle each year, which is probably why it’s charging tourists a day-tripper tax to visit.
For now, Poveglia per Tutti has put up €300,000 for the first phase of the project before it finds further funding to complete it.
The group partnered with the University of Verona so that it could study the social impact of redevelopment, so that it can create a community-led management of public assets.