Today is your last chance to buy a haunted venice island

Photo: Tedlum

Poveglia is located in the Venetian Lagoon, but despite being a stone's throw from the most beautiful city in the world, it is never visited by anyone. Well, almost never.

The island spans 17 acres and was once used as a quarantine station for plague victims in the 1700s. The grim history became even grimmer in the following century, when it was used by a doctor to house a mental hospital for experiments on patients with lobotomies, only to commit suicide from the building's tower.

While its haunted reputation - backed up by several TV presenters over the years - might be good cause for anyone to put it up for auction, the country is selling off the land for a very different reason: money.

Indeed, the lease for the island joins several prime properties that are under the digital hammer in an online auction designed to reduce Italy's huge deficit. The other buildings include a monastery in Taranto, Puglia, a 15th Century castle near Slovenia and a former barracks in Trieste. The window for bids on the <a href="http://demanio.astalegale.net/Public/Vendite/List.aspx">Demanio</a> website closes today.

This is just one of many auctions which will be held in 2014, which are hoped to raised a total of €500 million for the country's struggling coffers. The Italian state is confident that Poveglia's spooky past will not deter buyers: <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10767781/Worlds-most-haunted-island-up-for-auction.html">The Telegraph</a> reports that it might be developed into a luxury hotel, a prospect that would make the country's economy look a lot less scary.