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GHOSTS

Would you dare visit? These are Italy’s five most haunted places

It's Halloween, and to help you get into the ghoulish spirit, The Local brings you the top five most haunted places in Italy.

Published: 31 October 2016 08:42 CET

Would you dare visit? These are Italy's five most haunted places

The abandoned hospital on the island of Poveglia, the most haunted place in Italy. Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/Flickr

The country might be best known for its pleasant weather and beautiful monuments, but it has a dark side.

Each of the following places has a dark past – a past they might not be able to escape.

Tales of tortured hospital patients crying out in pain from beyond the grave, of mysterious disappearances and grisly murders, have all been passed down through the generations, along with reports of inexplicable sightings and ghostly wails…

Read on to find out which are the five most haunted sites in Italy – and how they came to be that way.

Poveglia island, Venice: Haunted by the souls of plague victims and tortured hospital patients

Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/Flickr

Located between Venice and Lido in the Venetian Lagoon lies Poveglia, considered the most haunted place in Italy.

In the 18th century the island was used as a quarantine station for people with infectious diseases. According to local legend, half of the island’s soil is now made up of the remains of plague victims who died there.

Later on, between 1922 and 1968 the island was also home to a hospital for the elderly and mentally ill. The hospital director was notoriously cruel and was rumoured to have performed horrific experiments on the patients, including crude lobotomies.

He is said to have performed them with tools such as hand drills, chisels and hammers, killing patients in the process.

The locals believe the island to be cursed by the tortured souls who once lived there, while the hospital director is said to have killed himself after being driven mad by the ghosts of his victims.

In 2014, a brave Italian businessman, Luigi Brugnaro, purchased the island with plans to redevelop it.

Villa Magnoni, Cona: A derelict haunted house

Situated in a beautiful park in the Veneto town of Cona, Villa Magnoni is a mysterious derelict house, nearly entirely boarded up.

A group of friends reportedly visited the house in the 1980s and heard children singing in the garden. Upon exploration, they found nothing. But they are said to have seen a woman in the top window of the house, shouting at them to leave. The friends ran in fear and sped away in their car, which was then involved in a tragic accident in which three of them were killed.

The one survivor reportedly went back to the house to investigate the woman they had seen, and upon searching the house discovered that the window from which she appeared was in a room which had no floor. There have been several reports of a female voice coming from the house, which remains uninhabited today.

Castello di Montebello, Torriana: A tower haunted by a 'cursed' little girl

Photo: Kate Dreyer/Flickr

Castello di Montebello, a 14th century hilltop fortress near Rimini, was home to a little girl called Guendolina. She was albino, which in those days was thought to be a curse, and anyone with albinism was burned at the stake.

To protect their daughter, her father would not allow her to leave the house, and hired two guards to watch over her. But legend has it that on 21st June 1375, the day of the summer solstice, the little girl was playing with a ball when it fell down the basement stairs. She ran after it and disappeared. Some suspected that her father killed her, but a body was never found.

Her ghost is said to inhabit the castle, and every summer solstice people report hearing the cries of a little girl.

Casa delle Anime, Voltri, Genoa: Site of grisly murders

Voltri is a small hamlet containing one of the country’s most haunted houses.

A family, all of whom suffered from mental disorders, are said to have once owned the house and ran an inn from it.

Legend has it that they would invite passing guests to stay and then during the night, murder them and steal whatever money they had before throw the corpses into a mass grave. The souls of the victims are said to have been bound to the house and roam around it during the night, making strange noises.

The house was empty for many years before a family moved in after the Second World War. They are said to have witnessed more than one strange event.

According to locals, several people have also witnessed a young girl dressed in white, asking if anyone has seen her lover. The girl is believed to have been betrothed to one of the family’s victims and after he never returned to her, she went to look for him. Now she wanders around the house, looking for her lost love.

Botanical Gardens, Lucca: Where a young girl made a deal with the devil

Photo: PapaPiper/Flickr

Situated within a corner of Lucca’s city wall, the botanical gardens are home to an old legend.

A noblewoman named Lucida Mansi lived in Lucca in the 17th century. She is said to have been extremely vain, so much so that sold her soul to the devil in exchange for retaining her beauty.

The pond in the centre of the gardens encircles the so-called “plant of death” as it lies on the burial site of plague victims, non-believers and executed prisoners. In its dark waters, you can apparently see the face of Lucida. She is said to have had many lovers, but wishing to keep her reputation intact, she murdered them to avoid scandal and did so by throwing them into a ditch covered in sharp blades.

She died of the plague but, still unhappy in death and having sold her soul, legend says that on dark stormy nights a fiery coach with Lucida inside can be seen racing around the pond, haunting the gardens.

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Halloween: Five of Germany's most haunted places

To mark Halloween, we’ve identified five little known haunted places in Germany – and the figures said to haunt them.

The last witch – Festung Marienberg, Würzburg

The Marienberg fortress looms above the beautiful city of Würzburg like a particularly squat bird of prey. Once the seat of the prince-bishops of the region, it has also played an important role in several major historical events as a demonstration of power.

However, the ghost of the fortress isn’t some stern noble, or soldier – it’s a vengeful nun, accused of witchcraft.

Maria Renata Singer von Mossau was born in 1679, and as a daughter of a lesser noble, became the prioress of the Unter Zell convent, close to the Czech border in Bavaria. Most of her tenure as the prioress was uneventful, even if many of the nuns thought she was a very strict leader.

That all changed in 1746, when one of the nuns began to have fits of convulsions, screaming and meowing like a cat. The phenomenon spread throughout the convent until almost all of the nuns were experiencing similar symptoms.

Maria was then placed under investigation, and searches allegedly turned up occult objects. A series of ‘interviews’ then turned up a confession – Maria told her interrogators that she had been pledged to Satan since childhood, and had been poisoning nuns and causing trouble for decades.

As late as the eighteenth century, the punishment for ‘witchcraft’ was execution, and on the 21st of June, 1749, she was beheaded near the fortress and her body burned. This verdict, when published in broadsheets, shocked Europe, and helped lead to the end of ‘witch’ persecutions across the continent.

This was a little too late for Maria, however – her angry spectre is said to roam the halls of the fortress, in addition to the convent at Unter Zell, expressing her displeasure. Not something you want to come across in the small hours of the night!

The family ghost – Plassenburg & Residenz Ansbach, Burg Hohenzollern & Berliner Schloss

It seems that in Germany you aren’t a respectable noble unless you have your own ‘Weisse Frau’ – a ghostly woman, dressed in white, who appears to herald the death of a member of the family. Think banshee, but for the rich.

By far the most famous ‘Weisse Frau’ in Germany is that attached to the Hohenzollerns, the family that would become the emperors of Germany in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

According to legend, this ‘Weisse Frau’ is the ghost of the 14th century Kunigunde von Orlamünde, who fell in love with Albrecht von Hohenzollern. Albrecht, a powerful noble, told Kunigunde that he would marry her if ‘four eyes weren’t in the way’. By this, he meant his parents, who were seeking a more suitable match.

Unfortunately, Kunigunde is said to have thought this meant her children. Much like the ‘La Llorona’ legend of Mexican folklore, she is said to have killed her children, and was later damned to haunt the Hohenzollerns forever.

The only problem is that the historical Kunigunde didn’t have any children. Never mind, there are plenty of other candidates in the family history for the ‘Weisse Frau’s’ real identity.

Lurk long enough around the Plassenburg in Kulmbach, the Residenz Ansbach or the Berliner Schloss and you might just see her – although you might want to let the family know she’s arrived.

If you want to see a depiction of her, she’s included as part of the murals in the library at Burg Hohenzollern, south of Stuttgart.

The ‘Weisse Frau’ of the Hohenzollerns as depicted in a 19th century illustration. Photo: Wikipedia

The family feud – Düsseldorf Castle

We’re used to watching family squabbles turn deadly in shows like ‘House of the Dragon’ – but did you know George R. R. Martin’s work is heavily influenced by European medieval and early modern history?

One story worthy of the Targeryens is the sad fate of Jakobea von Baden. A lively and beautiful young woman, Jakobea was pledged to marry Duke Johann Wilhelm of Berg, who ruled the area around Düsseldorf in the late 16th century.

Unfortunately for Jakobea, Duke Johann had a mental health condition and was quite often violent. In fact, he was so afflicted, a council ruled in his stead. Her sister-in-law Sybille was also a real piece of work, suspecting Jakobea of trying to take over the duchy.

When the Duke died, Jakobea thought that she may at least be able to improve her condition, while also working at improving the lot of her subjects. However, before she could act, she was found dead in her room in a tower of the Düsseldorf Castle on September 3rd, 1597.

Sybille claimed that Jakobea had died of a stroke, but those who attended her funeral would often comment on the bruises around her neck for years afterwards.

Today the castle’s tower is the only part that remains, and this is where Jakobea has been seen floating around the top of the Turm – quite a terrifying sight if you think about it!

Duchess Jakobea von Baden and the Schlossturm where she died. Photo: Wikipedia

The heartbroken teen – Frauenkirche, Munich

The twin towers of the Frauenkirche are one of the landmarks dominating the Munich skyline, and have done so for over 500 years. It’s also the site of a horrific tragedy that involves one of Germany’s literary giants.

Fanny von Ickstatt, who hailed from a wealthy family, was 17 when she met the dashing Franz von Vincenti, eight years her senior, during a trip to Ingolstadt. She was infatuated with him, and he was her, but Fanny’s mother, Franziska von Weinbach opposed the union.

Franziska did everything she could to oppose the union, telling Fanny she was not to see Franz. Depending on which version of the story you hear, Franz may have ended up seducing Franziska. Nevertheless, Fanny was heartbroken – she felt that she couldn’t go on.

On the 14th of January 1785, she climbed to the top of one of the Frauenkirche’s towers, and when her servant’s back was turned, she threw herself from it, dying instantly. The entire city was horrified at this act, with the tragic case being the subject of discussion for months.

When her house was searched, a copy of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrow of Young Werther was found on Fanny’s bedside table. This novel, while immensely popular, had a somewhat sinister celebrity – the tale of a heartbroken young man taking his own life was allegedly linked to a rash of suicides across Europe. Goethe himself would visit the site next year – he didn’t have much to say, other than he’d visited it.

The possessed – Gottliebin-Dittus-Haus, Möttlingen

To finish, we have a tale with something approaching a happy ending.

In the 1840s, in the small village of Möttlingen, on the edge of the Black Forest, near the town of Calw, lived young Gottliebin Dittus.

This star Sunday school pupil seemed destined for a life of quiet piety, when the departure of her favourite pastor seemed to set her off.

By this, we mean that things took a rather supernatural turn – all pointing to her. While she shrieked and convulsed, and there were ominous rumblings heard around town.

Ghosts were allegedly seen flitting around her small cottage, and there are even reports of her throwing up nails and metal objects.

It was at this point that the new pastor, Johann Christoph Blumhardt took control of the situation and proceeded with a series of exorcisms that lasted a whole two years, from 1841 to 1843.

Eventually, when things seemed to be reaching a crescendo, and Gottliebin’s two siblings seemed to be starting to succumb to the same ‘possession’, the supernatural activities abruptly stopped. .

Gottliebin would go on to marry, have three children, and work for the church, living another thirty years. For the rest of her life, however, there were many questions for her about her experiences – and what exactly she thought had possessed her.

If you visit Möttlingen today, there’s a small memorial and museum devoted to Gottliebin at her former home. It’s perfectly safe to visit by day, but who knows what happens after dusk – to this day, the area has a reputation for strange supernatural occurrences.

Do you have a favourite German local legend or ghost story? Email [email protected] and you may see it covered in a future article

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