8. Seemingly cursed, the “world’s most haunted island” – the island of Poveglia in Venice – has been inhabited by several groups throughout history, all of whom met with troubled endings
A small island located in the Venetian Lagoon, Poveglia Island rests between Venice and Lido in northern Italy. Divided into two parts by a canal, the island first became populated in 421 CE when refugees from Padua and Este, seeking escape from barbarian hordes, colonized the landmass. Abandoning the island in 1379 when Venice was attacked by Genoa, the uninhabited island was rejected by the Camaldolese monks before being transformed into a fortress to protect the city-state. Starting in 1776, Poveglia began operation as a quarantine station for plague victims. Serving this function for more than a century, more than 160,000 patients were imprisoned on the island.
Leaving a lasting impact on Poveglia, with an estimated 50 percent of its soil is composed of the ashes of burnt corpses, in 1922 the island was converted into a mental institution. Following complaints of haunting by asylum inmates, as well as reports of bizarre experiments by the head physician prior to his eventual suicide, this short-lived endeavor ended in 1968. Returning to an uninhabited state, the Venetian authorities have tried, in vain, to find an acceptable purpose for the seemingly cursed piece of land. The most recent efforts, a luxury hotel development, fell through in 2014 after contractual disagreements.