Just a few miles south of the dreamy canals of Venice, where gondolas glide and tourists sip espresso, lies Poveglia—a small, crumbling island where no one is allowed to live or even visit. Some say it’s because of the ghosts, but that’s not really it.

Poveglia is a layered time capsule of tragedy. It was once a bustling community which was turned into a quarantine zone, then into a psychiatric hospital, then fell into ruin. And while it’s often portrayed as Italy’s version of a horror movie, the real story of Poveglia is even more unsettling.

A Place Where People Disappear

The story begins not with ghosts, but refugees. In the 6th century, people fleeing barbarian invasions from cities like Padua and Este found sanctuary on Poveglia. For centuries, they fished, traded salt, and raised families. It was a small but close knit community. Then came war. The Chioggia War in the late 1300s forced the evacuation of the island, and kickstarted Poveglia long descent into infamy.

No one re-settled Poveglia. The same traits that made it attractive as a trading outpost made it vulnerable in the face of war and raids. No one wanted that, so the island remained largely abandoned.

By the late 1700s, Europe was ravaged by waves of plague. Venice, a city of trade, needed a way to protect itself. So Poveglia became a lazaretto—a quarantine station. Anyone showing symptoms, or sometimes even just traveling from infected regions, was shipped off to the island. The logic was simple: better to isolate a few than risk the many.

The scale of this was staggering. Over 100,000 people may have died on the island during its quarantine years. Some sources suggest the number could be as high as 160,000. Plague pits were dug. Bodies were burned when space ran out. According to legend, the island’s soil is mixed with so much human ash that half its ground is said to be made of the dead.

There’s no solid scientific basis for that exact claim. Archaeologists have found extensive burial evidence across the Venetian lagoon—especially at nearby Lazzaretto Vecchio. The scale of death on Poveglia is hard to assess, but there’s no doubt that it was a place filled with tragedy.

Yet that’s not the end of this bizarre story.

A Mental Hospital Horror Story

If deserted quarantine wasn’t horror enough, Poveglia’s next chapter is perhaps even more disturbing. In 1922, its derelict buildings were turned into a mental institution. Officially, it was a hospital for the elderly and mentally ill. Unofficially, it became a dumping ground for people society didn’t know how to help—and didn’t want to see.

Accounts of patient abuse are difficult to verify, but widespread rumors persist. Lobotomies allegedly performed with crude tools. Solitary confinement in decaying cells. Electroshock therapy without oversight. The hospital was closed in 1968, but by then, the damage was don, not just to bodies, but to collective memory.

There were tales of a “mad doctor” who went insane, haunted by the spirits of his victims, and threw himself from the bell tower. Visitors who report voices, screams, and ghostly figures. A little girl is said to haunt the beach. None of these legends are substantiated, but that didn’t stop them from being popularized by paranormal TV shows. The legends stuck, particularly because of the horrors that took place on the island.

But that’s not the reason why Poveglia is off-limits today.

The Horrors of Bureaucracy

Unlike many so-called haunted sites, Poveglia is truly forbidden. It’s government-owned, and access is strictly regulated. The reason for that isn’t curses or ghosts, but rather because the buildings are collapsing. The floors are rotting and the walls are barely standing. To add even more to the myth of this island, restoration crews who tried to work there left abruptly, never finishing the job.

Environmental concerns make things even more problematic. Sea level rise has led to saltwater pollution in the lagoon, which damaged local water supplies. Heavy metals and toxic chemicals have been found in nearby areas. And even without the supernatural, navigating a ruin full of plague pits, unmarked graves, and decades of decay isn’t something to take lightly.

Several attempts were made to reinvent the island, but none worked so far. In 2014, a businessman won a lease auction and planned to turn the island into a luxury resort. It never happened. Later, a grassroots campaign called Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for All) sought to raise millions to turn it into a public park and research center. That also stalled.

Today, the only legal use for the island under its current zoning plan is agriculture. Earthworks are banned and there’s not even a path that can be used safely. Some academics have proposed transforming it into a zero-energy university campus, but others argue it should remain untouched—a living memorial to the people who suffered there.

No doubt, Poveglia is a horror story. But it’s not one with ghosts or haunted houses. This story is about quarantine, abandonment, and the long shadow of unethical public health policies.

And perhaps most chillingly, Poveglia shows us that forgetting is easy. Burying and ignoring your problems is easier, whether you’re a person or a contry. But it’s rarely the right answer.