SPECTRALWhat happened here
Poveglia was a thriving settlement in the early Middle Ages. In 1379, during Venice's war with Genoa, its people were moved to the city and the island was left almost empty. From 1793 it served as a lazzaretto, a checkpoint where people and goods suspected of carrying plague were held in quarantine, and it remained a quarantine station into the 19th century.
In 1922 its buildings were turned into a hospital for the elderly, which closed in 1968; the island has been abandoned ever since. In 2014 the Italian state auctioned a 99-year lease. A citizens' campaign, Poveglia per Tutti (“Poveglia for everyone”), raised money to keep the island open to Venetians, and the sale fell through.
The legends
The legends say that some 160,000 plague victims were burned and buried on Poveglia, and that half of its soil is human ash. Fishermen are said to avoid its shores for fear of netting bones.
The darkest story concerns the hospital: a doctor is said to have experimented on patients before climbing the bell tower and falling — or being pushed — to his death, claiming he had been driven mad by ghosts. People who have slipped onto the island describe screams at dusk and a bell ringing from a tower whose bell was taken away long ago.
Fact or legend?
Poveglia really was a quarantine station, and burials from epidemics are likely. But the famous figures — 160,000 dead, soil that is half ash — appear in no historical source, and the mad doctor has never been identified. Records describe the hospital as a home for the elderly, not an asylum. Much of Poveglia's legend was built by television and the internet.
Visiting
Poveglia is closed to the public and there are no tours; landing without permission is not allowed. You can see it from boats and water taxis on the lagoon, and from the Lido.
