We do not speak lightly of the history of the Mombello Asylum.
It was a place of pain and loneliness, which only deserves to be listened to and understood, with respect for the people who lived there.
Its real name is Antoni psychiatric hospital and its story begins in 1865, where following a cholera epidemic, there was an urgent need to move psychiatric patients who lived in the now overcrowded asylum Senavra (Milan).
Following a restructuring, the asylum of Mombello between 1873 and 1878 housed over 1000 patients.
Built “in the village”, this asylum was divided into pavilions where the sick were detained according to the type of pathology: quiet, dirty, hardworking and agitated (kept in isolation and hidden from view).
Among the various guests in 1935 in this psychiatric hospital was also imprisoned Benito Albino, the illegitimate son of Mussolini who died following mysterious causes and in anonymity.
After the Basaglia law of 1978, the asylum of Mombello began its decline until it was completely abandoned in 1999.
Now only sad memories remain of the asylum of Mombello, after being vandalized and looted.
Among the bush surrounding the pavilions, you enter with bated breath.
The corridors are dark, the internal gardens uncultivated, some rooms have been burned, but you can still breathe the suffering of the patients.
These photos were taken many years ago, when the documents of patients and animals were still present, because for a period one of the structures was used as a Veterinary USL.
There were still the laboratories in fair condition, machinery for the therapies and the patient beds.
I returned to the Asylum of Mombello in 2021, and the situation I found had definitely changed: everything was destroyed and vandalized, the structures are at the limit of their resistance and inside it hosts many desperate people who have found a home among those walls of suffering. .
If you are interested you can see the photos of my last visit to Mombello in the post “Return to the Asylum Mombello“.
If you love abandoned asylums at this link you can see my explorations.
