The leasehold of a Venetian island described as one of the most haunted places in Italy is to be auctioned next month as the state desperately seeks to raise revenue.
Poveglia, a small, uninhabited island in the Venice lagoon, minutes from St Mark's Square, is among five prime properties, including a castle and a monastery, that will go under the hammer in an online auction.
The 7ha island was fought over by the Venetians and the Genoese in the 14th century, before it became a quarantine station for ships arriving at Venice in the 18th century.
After plague was discovered on two ships, the island was sealed off and used to house people with infectious diseases, leading to legends of terminally ill Venetians waiting to die before their ghosts returned to haunt the island.
A hospital for the elderly, which opened in 1922 and operated until 1968, is rumoured to have carried out experiments on the mentally ill, including crude lobotomies undertaken by a director who was driven mad by ghosts before throwing himself from the hospital's tower.
