Tuesday, July 14, 2015

The Most Beautiful abandoned Mental Asylum in the World (18 Pics)

Posted by Fiona at 2:28 AM

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When you picture a mental asylum, usually a random scene from “One flew over the cuckoo nest” comes in mind, right?

Well, most of us imagine a dark, Stark hallways and dungeon-like holding cells, the psychiatric hospital Villa Sbertoli, totally shattered the usual image of a mental asylum.

In the rolling hills of Tuscany, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest was done with impeccable taste of style.

In the early 1800s, a wealthy Italian merchant Agostino Sbertoli, built the grandiose villa and gave it the family name : “Vila Sbetroli”. Allegedly, his son was mentally troubled, so Sbertoli decided to turn the sumptuous villa into into a psychiatric hospital.

On his death bed, he decided to devote all his possessions to a charity for the mentally ill, so that his son could feel at home. The Roman Revival villa was converted into a mental asylum in 1868.

The hospital was well known throughout Europe, and took patients suffering with everything from psychiatric illnesses to epilepsy and alcoholism.

The elite could trust Villa Sbertoli to look after their “troubled” relatives and be discrete about it. But most of all, keep them out of sight.

During World War II it was used by the Nazis to hold prisoners, but when the war ended, was sold to the province and used as a psychiatric hospital again.

In 1978 “Law Basaglia” (a reform of the Italian psychiatric system) was passed and the hospital was forced to close and by 1990 was abandoned completely. Today it’s still semi-abandoned but the city of Pistoia is attempting to revitalize the area.