We met at 5:00AM sharp on a cool Friday morning in April 2004 to take a 5 hour bus trip from the city of Perugia down the leg of Italy to the port of Formia, just north of Naples. There were 35 of us, 3 teachers and the rest American college students. We boarded a ferry at Formia for the island of Ventotene in the Tyrrhenian Sea for a 3-day trip.
Ventotene sits among other fragments of volcanic rock known as the Pontine Islands and has an ancient tradition of exile. The Romans built the city and its still functioning port. Emperor Tiberius exiled his grand-niece Agrippina there who, as legend has it, was starved to death in 33 AD. Her son Caligula retrieved her remains after her death. Though as beautiful as Capri' and the coast along Sorrento, one has the sense of being far away when there, as if designated by nature to be a place of banishment.
A small group of us decided to hire a boat on our second day there to visit Santo Stefano, a small off-shoot of the main island, the top of which was dominated by a massive, pale-yellow prison. The fortress was built in 1795 by the Bourbons to confine those who opposed their rule and has since had a notorious past as a place of political exile for opponents of the monarchy and the later Mussolini regime. The Italian state used it as a prison for the condemned after the war, but ultimately closed the place in 1965.
We departed from the Roman port, whose ancient cement was smooth and rounded from 2,000 years of waves. All ten of us sat around the edge of the small rubber craft as it cut a straight line against the mild sea for the 1.5 kilometer journey. The awesome horseshoe-shaped fortress sat like a crown on a volcanic head that rose high out of the sea. Our boatman, Franco, told us he had arranged for someone to give us a tour of the place, but the guide was not an actual tour guide.
?He's an old loner named Bruno who lives in the prison,? Franco said casually. ?He used to be a guard there many years ago, but refused to leave after they closed the place.? A few female students eyed each other with concern. ?The Italian State abandoned the place, so no one minds if he stays there.?
?How does he survive up there?? I asked. ?Where does he get food from??
?He comes to town every so often in a little boat,? Franco said. ?But he has no family here. He has been living up there alone since the 1960s.?
?Is it safe to go there?? Karen asked meekly, followed by assenting nods from her fellow students. She was one of 6 girls aboard.
?Of course,? Franco said with a laugh. ?Though it might be a little safer if the girls stay in a group. And don't go into the area where he lives. He might try to invite you there. This would be a mistake.?
?I'm not going up there,? Karen said loudly, her eyes glaring at me for support.
?I'm just kidding,? Franco replied. ?Relax. Bruno's harmless.?
I was the only one who laughed. The student's eyed each other nervously and said nothing for the rest of the journey. My eyes remained fixed on the prison's gold-colored walls which shone dimly through the Summer haze as we approached. Tales of an isolated loner living there in self-imposed exile added to the abandoned prison's lore. This trip was taken a million times before by men in shackles. Many were notable people condemned by various rulers, including the author's of the famed Ventotene Manifesto, which was smuggled out of the prison in 1946. The document advocated European federalism and became important in the early movement toward European Union.
The craft bounced against the rocks when we finally reached the shore. This was not on the tourist route--no dock, only a thin ledge of sand surrounded by boulders at the foot of bulging earth and stone. We each crawled from the boat as it rolled up and down, trying not to slip on the rocks. It was the only flat spot in sight. Once ashore, Franco led us single file up a steep dirt path that zigzagged along perilous ripples of earth on an otherwise vertical surface. We crawled on hands and knees for part of the trek so as not to tumble backwards or slide into the overgrown weeds and jagged bushes?the only barriers to the straight drop down.
We reached the top sweating and panting and paused for a rest. Sweat stung my eyes as I slumped down on a boulder, my head aching from the heat and my ears filled with the collective humming of countless insects. Insects and sweat always seem to go together in places like this.
After our pause, we followed a path on flatter land to a stone road that passed the rounded guard towers in the front of the prison to a courtyard around the side. I glanced at chunks of cement on the floors from collapsed walls and rusted iron rods twisting out of the ceilings as I passed. All the doors and windows were gone. We herded into the courtyard, which was well kept in comparison, while Franco went to find Bruno. Bordered with stonework and shrubbery, the courtyard looked like the reception area of a royal estate. Had the buildings not been dilapidating, they could have been a suite of elegant mansions with a postcard view of the main island across the water.
Three of the male students walked to the side entrance of the main building while several of the others sat on the ground. ?Be careful going in there,? I called out. Old boards lay across the doorway and the insides were eroded from exposure to the weather and looked fragile. Seconds later, a man ran from the back yelling loudly in a harsh, crackling voice. He was hard to understand, so Franco interpreted nervously for us. ?He says you have no right to go in there,? Franco said. ?He wants the students out.? The three students didn't respond, which caused the man to yell louder. I finally called out to them and they came. The man then turned his angry grimace toward the girls sitting on the ground, his dark eyes peering contemptuously. One closed her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees as he stared.
This was Bruno. He wore grimy blue workman's cloths with his shirt unbuttoned enough to expose a scar across the upper portion of his sweaty chest. His shinny mop of black hair was wrapped around his meaty head and a generous coat of black and gray beard stubble complemented his jagged teeth. Not the tour guide of the year, he had the unsettling appearance of a cemetery worker in a B horror movie.
?He says you're rude,? Franco said to us. ?He doesn't want to give a tour because you don't have any respect for the place.?
?That's not true,? I said. Bruno must have understood my protest, because he waved his hands in refusal as I spoke. ?He said you people understand nothing of this place,? Franco said. I suppose the prison was like Bruno's private home and we were uninvited guests. He must feel personally connected to the history of the place. What else would motivate him to live here alone for most of his life?
Once refused, we decided to explore the prison on our own. Bruno started yelling again and Franco told us not to enter any of the buildings because they were dangerous. I agreed and told the students the same.
As I walked toward the rear of the main building, three female students ran up to me, grabbed my shirt and huddled close to me, almost preventing me from walking. ?He's following us,? one whispered. I turned to see Bruno tailing us with a suspicious look. ?Don't worry,? I said with a chuckle.
We followed the building most of the way down one side of the horseshoe. The boxy cells of cement and iron were bleached from the sun, but most were still in tact. Ancient graffiti scratched into the walls echoed innumerable stories of hardship. ?Liberta,'? cried one long-dead prisoner. Graffiti is thought of as a modern nuisance, but it has a history and it tends to survive as a form of popular testimony well after societies pass into history. Even Roman graffiti can be found in places.
We turned back before reaching the bottom of the horseshoe because the building ran close to an eroding edge of the hill which shot steeply down toward the sea. Bruno backed off as we came toward the courtyard.
Franco hailed us to follow him to a narrow ridge that meandered through dense weeds and lush wildflowers to the other side of the complex where a small cemetery lay on a partially hidden swath of land. The place was crammed with the bodies of prisoners who likely had to share their final resting places with their fellow inmates as they had their cells in life. The cemetery had long since gone fallow by many seasons of rich overgrowth, but the place was clearly marked by odd bumps of earth, headstones turned unevenly in the grass-covered dirt and a crucifix or two posted about.
Despite the majesty of the buildings and the magnificence of the view of the main island across the water, the place had an overall sense of sadness to it. Though a desolate and windswept fragment of land in the sea, it had collected enough sorrow to fill the history of a whole nation.
After the cemetery, we headed back toward our boat and slid cautiously down to the ledge without a hitch. It was much easier than the climb up. Franco circled the main island on our way back, passing a long stretch of volcanic cliff that rose several hundred feet from the water. Mansions lined the cliff's edge at the highest altitudes while caves and crevices pocked its surface in odd formations that probably provided many an ancient hiding place. A crass thought occurred to me as we completed the circle and entered the Roman port: If I only had a metal detector here, I'd become a millionaire from what I'd find in this land.
