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Santo Stefano Island - the prison where the dream of a united Europe was born.

QFR3+6P Ventotene, Latina, Italy

Santo Stefano is a tiny island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where for almost two centuries there was a penitentiary institution built based on the so-called ideal prison project of the late 18th century.
World: Prison Islands, Active and Historical
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Jermaine

Santo Stefano is a tiny island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where for almost two centuries a penitentiary institution stood, built based on the so-called ideal prison project of the late 18th century.

The island of Santo Stefano is the place where the dream of a united Europe was born. Its white granite cliffs and turquoise waters have a long history as a place of punishment and torture for exiles and outcasts. Known in Roman times as Pandateria, it first became famous thanks to Julia the Elder, daughter of Emperor Augustus, who was accused of adultery before Emperor Nero exiled his wife Octavia there.

It was there that the Bourbons built a horseshoe-shaped prison in 1797. It consisted of 99 cells arranged around a circular watchtower with rooms for more than 600 prisoners.

The ideal prison, according to the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, should be a circular structure with glass internal partitions, where prisoners can be observed by a single guard located in the center in a special watchtower, whom they cannot see and therefore cannot know when they are actually being watched. Thus, prisoners are motivated to behave properly at all times.


However, this theoretically ideal structure did not prevent numerous riots and escape attempts. In 1797, just two years after the penitentiary institution on Santo Stefano island opened, the first rebellion took place, followed by another the next year. The largest uprising occurred in 1860, when 800 prisoners managed to take control of the prison, taking advantage of the fact that most guards had been sent to fight Giuseppe Garibaldi’s troops, who were conquering the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies during the unification of Italy. The rebellious inmates proclaimed the Republic of Santo Stefano, established a senate, and drafted a code of rules that included the death penalty for various crimes. The republic lasted several months until early 1861, when Italian troops came to the island to restore control.

During World War II, it was a place where political dissidents were exiled. About 2,000 prisoners languished on Santo Stefano when it earned the nickname "island of deprivation of liberty."

During the fascist regime, among the prisoners on Santo Stefano island were the future president of Italy Alessandro Pertini, writer Giorgio Amendola, journalist Lelio Basso, communists Luigi Longo, Altiero Spinelli (who wrote there the text now known as the "Ventotene Manifesto," which proposed the idea of a federal Europe after the war), Pietro Secchia and Umberto Terracini, anarchist Gino Lucetti (organizer of the 1926 assassination attempt on Mussolini). From 1941 to 1943, Soviet spy Lev Manevich (Etienne) was held in the prison.

Among them was Altiero Spinelli, a journalist and communist activist sentenced in 1927 to sixteen years in prison for his works criticizing Benito Mussolini’s rise to power. Arriving on the island in 1941, during his imprisonment he secretly co-wrote with fellow prisoner Ernesto Rossi the "Ventotene Manifesto" — one of the foundational texts of European federalism. Written on cigarette paper and hidden in a tin box with a double bottom, the "Manifesto for a Free and United Europe" was smuggled to the continent thanks to a German anti-fascist activist who helped spread it among the Italian resistance. The idea was to create a federation of European states that would unite the countries of Europe and prevent future wars between them. Spinelli asked to be buried on the island, and Italian Prime Minister Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President François Hollande laid flowers on his grave.

Sources:

https://napoli1.com/news/tjuremnyj_italjanskij_ostrov_rodina_evropejskoj_mechty/2017-04-24-8506

https://account.travel/place/santo-stefano-island-prison.html

 

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Jermaine

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