Poveglia is a small island located between Venice and Lido in the Venetian Lagoon, of northern Italy. A small canal divides the island into two separate parts. The island first appears in the historical record in 421, and was populated until the residents fled warfare in 1379. For more than 100 years beginning in 1776, the island was used as a quarantine station for those suffering the plague and other diseases, and later as a mental hospital.