Volterra Asylum

Toscana · Italy · Hospital

Fernando Nannetti carved his cosmic account 70 metres along the Ferri pavilion wall — and around that pavilion the cries are still heard.

The Ferri pavilion is the building nobody enters alone. This is where the criminal patients were held, and visitors report screams, footsteps and shadow figures in the empty corridors. Along its outer wall runs the thing that made Volterra world-famous: patient Fernando Oreste Nannetti's 70-metre engraving, scratched out over years with his belt buckle — an entire cosmic narrative in stone, written by a man nobody listened to.

The asylum held up to 6,000 inmates at its peak and was called by its patients 'the place of no return', since few were ever discharged. Since its closure after the Basaglia law of 1978 the pavilions have decayed in their park, partly fenced off — which has only increased the pull.

FAQ

Where is Volterra Asylum located?

Volterra Asylum is in Toscana, Italy.