Deadly plague ravaged this Italian island, thousands died and were burned, with ashes rumoured to make up 50% of the ground before it became home to a haunted mental hospital

Just beyond the postcard Venice of gondolas, palazzos and crowded bridges lies a small island with a history so dark that its reputation has long eclipsed its size. Poveglia sits in the Venetian Lagoon between Venice and Lido. Today, its abandoned buildings are swallowed by vegetation and its old hospital complex stands largely empty. But for centuries, the island served very different purposes: first as a settlement, then as a place of quarantine and death, and eventually as a hospital for the elderly and mentally ill.

One persistent legend claims that so many plague victims were buried or burned on the island that human ashes make up about 50% of its ground. Some popular accounts put the number of people who died there at as many as 160,000. That figure, however, belongs to the island's folklore rather than established scientific evidence.