Visit to the Abandoned Mental Hospital of Santa Maria Della Pieta in Rome

Visit to the former mental hospital of Santa Maria della Pieta'. The psychiatric hospital, built between 1907 and 1913 and definitively closed only in 2000, was the biggest in Europe and consists of a central body surrounded by 40 pavilions and immersed in hectares of park. The hospital was a real autonomous town, strictly divided into female and male section, with its own kitchen, laundry, and even a small operating room. Among the many pavilions, the XVIII was for the criminals, surrounded by 4m high walls, the XIV for the agitated, the XXII for the chronics, the XII for the dangerous, who tried to escape or commit suicide, the VIII and XC for children, the XXII, the biggest, called the Bison, was for epileptic, demented and schizophrenic. In 1978, with the Basaglia law, the asylums were closed, even if the Santa Maria della Pieta' was definively closed only in 2000 and until then few patients still lived there. Nowadays, part of the complex is occupied by the local health company, part of the museum of the mind, but most of the buildings are uninhabited and in a state of total abandonment, surrounded by rubble and overgrown grass. Broken and grated windows allow the visitor to glimpse bare rooms, walls covered with tiles and writings, random objects forgotten who knows when, dust covering everything. Many street artists made paintings on the walls trying to interpret the feelings of patients, or maybe just to alleviate the sadness of this place. Rome (Italy), September 26th 2021 (Photo by Samantha Zucchi/Insidefoto/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)