Take a haunted villa, an undeletable stain, a devilish forest, a misty lake and a ghost on a bridge… There are some places that we know so well from films and TV series with incredible stories, others inspire them. This list is for those who love to get chills!
Palazzo Donn’Anna in Naples is perhaps one of the most famous locations in Italy used in film and TV series. It often appears in the background of the Bagno Elena beach in Posillipo: for example, in My Brilliant Friend it is where Elena takes the children she is babysitting. Various legends shroud the villa in a veil of mystery. Joanna of Anjou is supposed to have met her lovers there and to have killed them, pushing them off the side: their spirits still wander the underground basements. Another ghost is that of the beautiful Mercedes de las Torres who disappeared mysteriously after kissing the nobleman Gaetano di Casapenna, lover of Vicereine Anna Carafa, during a scene on stage.
The Castle of Roccascalegna appears in the TV series Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose) and is the home of the king of Roccaforte (played by Vincent Cassel) in Racconto dei Racconti (The Tale of Tales). Legend holds that Baron Corvo de Corvis, having reinstated the Ius primae noctis in 1646, was stabbed by a bride (or a husband in disguise) and, as he died, he placed his bloody hand on a stone in the castle tower, which collapsed in 1940. It was said that this bloody print would reappear despite being continually cleaned off.
In Alpine areas of Germanic culture, the Krampus, or Christmas Devil, appears on 5 December, the day before the Feast of St. Nicholas. According to legend, during famines young men from mountain villages would disguise themselves with coats of feathers, pelts and animal horns to terrorize neighbouring villages and steal their food. However, the devil would hide among them, recognisable by his goats’ cloven hooves, with only Bishop Nicholas able to defeat him. Ever since, accompanied by St. Nicholas, young men dressed as demons take part in an annual parade through the streets, distributing gifts to children or remonstrating the naughty ones. Sometimes, though, someone goes missing. Like little Tommaso, the main character in In fondo al bosco (Deep in the Wood) who mysteriously disappeared in the woods on Krampusnacht in Val di Fassa, in the Alps of Trentino.
An ancient story tells how a wizard, in love with the nymph of Lake Carezza, attempted to trap and kidnap her. When his plan failed, he angrily threw a rainbow into the water where it burst into a thousand pieces giving the lake the colours of an ocular iris. The nymph then disappeared, as did a girl: near the lake is the small village of Avechot, a settlement high in the mountains surrounded by forests and mist. Here The Girl in the Fog (la ragazza nella nebbia) goes missing….
The ghost of Beatrice Cenci is rumoured to appear every year on the night of 11 September, on the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome, opposite the square where she was beheaded accused of killing her father. Many have claimed to have seen her wandering in the area over the centuries: she is recognisable because she carries her severed head. Some might even have spotted her in one of the numerous cinema scenes that have the bridge in the background.