Poveglia

About

Poveglia ( poh-VEL-ee-ə; Italian: [poˈveʎʎa]) is a small island located between Venice and Lido in the Venetian Lagoon, of northern Italy. Two small canals divide the island into three separate parts. The island first appears in the historical record in 421 and was populated and farmed until the residents fled warfare in 1379. For more than 100 years, beginning in 1776, the island was used as a quarantine station for incoming ships and their cargo, and later as a psychiatric hospital. The psychiatric hospital closed in 1968. After decades of neglect, the northern part of the island was granted as a concession to Poveglia per tutti in 2025 for development as a public park.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.