Blind Spot

When a virulent infectious disease broke out, the most appropriate way to handle corpses was cremation. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—let the dead rest in peace, and let the living find release.

However, the Bible said that Jesus would return after ascending to heaven. Then the Last Judgment would be carried out, and the dead would be resurrected. If the bodies had been cremated, there would be no way to resurrect them. That was why Catholicism still practiced burial.

The Venetians, however, chose to cremate bodies on Poveglia Island.

A single "mass grave" held the bodies of many people, all set alight together. This was nothing like modern crematories, where bodies were cremated individually.

Everyone's ashes, regardless of who they had been in life or whether they had loved or hated one another, were mixed together and became part of the island's soil.

Without a body, resurrection would be impossible. That was worrying, but the solution was simple. God could use His omnipotence to grant people new bodies instead of their old ones. When Jehovah created Adam, He made him from dust. Once Adam had been formed from earth, he was merely a work like a sculpture. Only after Jehovah gave him His own breath did he come alive.

The island should have been left in peace as a sign of respect for the dead. Yet in the early twentieth century, an asylum was built there. One doctor used terrifying methods to "treat" patients driven mad. It was like drawing out their souls. What remained alive was a quiet shell, but the living found release.

Few Europeans had never heard of this place. It was one of Europe's ten most terrifying locations; perhaps only Easterners and Americans did not know about it.

One American family had suffered there, and