In 1978 the Italian government passed a seminal law ordering the closure of all psychiatric hospitals in the nation, releasing the inmates for care in the community. It was the culmination of a wide popular backlash against the highly invasive treatment of mental disorders at the time, often relying on internment, heavy medication, and electric shock therapy. Patients would become institutionalised, with little hope of ever making a recovery.

Il Ferri, a vast complex built in the late 19th century housing 5,000 criminal and civil mental patients, closed its doors overnight.

It has laid abandoned ever since.