Ever heard of it? It’s a little island near Venice (now uninhabited) that’s had an unusual history and has attracted a lot of spooky legends.  Plague victims were sent there, it has been used as a quarantine station and in the 1920s a mental asylum was built there.  It is said that the soil is 50% human ash since so many victims of the black death were burnt there.  In fact, there are plague pits on the island, but 50% is a tiny bit fanciful.  Not quite as fanciful as the story of the butcher psychiatrist who, after going mad from guilt over his torturing ways, threw himself from the tower only to survive and be strangled by a ghostly mist.  Sounds like the perfect place to build a luxury hotel, no?  Well, Italy is auctioning off a 99 year lease on the island to help pay off government debt so that seems to be where it’s headed.  Not that all the locals are happy about it—Poveglia per tutti are asking people for donations to make a bid to keep the island open to the public.

Any abandoned, decaying mental asylum is bound to be a magnet to photographers and yes, there are some great photos on Flickr.

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