The town of Consonno, once a sleepy farming village about an hour’s drive from Milan, was bought, demolished and rebuilt in the 1960s by entrepreneur Mario Bagno. He had big plans and turned it into an amusement park with the allure of Las Vegas.
But in 1976, just a few years after Bagno opened the gates of his Italian Vegas, the only access road was destroyed by a landslide. This is how Consonno changed from dream town to ghost town.
Beautiful ghost towns
Like Consonno, there are thousands of abandoned ghost towns and villages in Italy – and the rest of the world for that matter. Some are completely abandoned, others are only inhabited by a few stubborn residents who do not wish to leave. The Italians are no exception in this regard: the inhabitants of these ancient cave houses in Spain and in China and Australia, among others, have proven to be quite steadfast.
Photographer Bruno Zanzottera made a sport of visiting and photographing the ghost villages in his home country; you can see the result at the bottom. Some were depopulated by natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods. Others owe their vacancy to economic developments, such as the closure of a mine or the construction of an alternative road.
Also read: Vogelsang: a secret Soviet ghost town close to Berlin
Free money for new residents
In recent years, shrinking municipalities have made frantic attempts to boost their population again. The medieval village of Pratariccia in Tuscany, which fell into disrepair after residents moved to surrounding towns for work, was even put up for sale on eBay, and the mayor of vacant Bormida is said to have offered to give two thousand euros as a gift to anyone who would move to his village.
Only time will tell whether these tricks will pay off. In the meantime, Italy’s ghost villages remain a top destination for curious urban explorers.
View the images by photographer Bruno Zanzottera below.
View gallery
Merav Pront is a digital editor at National Geographic and also regularly writes for the magazine. During her studies in human geography, she learned to place local phenomena in an international context. As a freelance journalist, she looks for the small stories behind the big news. She writes for the VPRO and the National Holocaust Museum, among others.
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