Poveglia ( ; ) is a small island located between Venice and Lido in the Venetian Lagoon, of northern Italy. A small canal divides the island into two separate parts. The island first appears in the historical record in 421, and was populated until the residents fled warfare in 1379. For more than 100 years beginning in 1776, the island was used as a quarantine station for those suffering the plague and other diseases, and later as a mental hospital. The mental hospital closed in 1968, and the island has been vacant ever since. Because of its history, the island is frequently featured on paranormal shows. Visits to the island are prohibited, but various books and articles report on visits by writers and/or photographers. Believers in the paranormal have claimed that Poveglia is the most haunted island or the most haunted place in the world. History The island is first mentioned in chronicles of 421, when people from Padua and Este fled there to escape the barbarian invasions. In the 9th century the island's population began to grow, and in the following centuries its importance grew steadily, until it was governed by a dedicated Podestà. In 1379 Venice came under attack from the Genoan fleet; the people of Poveglia were moved to the Giudecca. The island remained uninhabited in the subsequent centuries; in 1527 the doge offered the island to the Camaldolese monks, who refused the offer. From 1645 on, the Venetian government built five octagonal forts to protect and control the entrances to the lagoon. The Poveglia octagon is one of four that still survive. In 1776 the island came under the jurisdiction of the Magistrato alla Sanità (Public Health Office), and became a check point for all goods and people coming to and going from Venice by ship. In 1793, there were several cases of the plague on two ships, and consequently the island was transformed into a temporary confinement station for the ill (lazaretto); this role became permanent in 1805, under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, who also had the old church of San Vitale destroyed; the old bell-tower was converted into a lighthouse. The lazaretto was closed in 1814. The island was used as a quarantine station from 1793 until 1814. In 1922 the existing buildings were converted into an asylum for the mentally ill and later used as a nursing home/long-term care facility, until its