More than half of our Italy road trip in summer 2018 was already over when we reached Blue Chapel. While a heat wave tightend its grip on Italy, we were trying to find a refreshing cooling-down inside dark ruins.
We have to admit that the condition of the building complex was way worse than expected. It’s already falling apart in many places, the hallways are stripped and there is also nothing left in the rooms but mold. Our research after the exploration confirmed our assumption: The three-floored house used to be a catholic boarding school. Around 1930 this facility was built on top of the ruins of a former seminary. On the over 20.000 square meter big compound children were learning, playing and praying for 50 years. Until the college had to close down in 1984 due to a decreasing number of students.
So what’s with the chapel now? Luckily, it’s not as empty as the other part of the residential school. Quite the opposite actually! Urban explorers are calling this place “Blue Chapel” because the altar gets illuminated in a blue glow by the high-lying and tall windows.
Even when it might not look like it at first glance: The chapel has already fallen victim to vandalism. Apparently this church was never desecrated. And so it became a venue for Satanists. It’s said that there are celebrated black masses on a regular basis. And even grave robbers were ransacking the site before.
After the boarding school was abandoned, it was used as a police academy for ten years. Then, in 1997, refugees were housed here transitionally. After that, the building complex was supposed to be transformed into a foster home. However, this plan was never turned into action because the businessman became insolvent. So, in 2010 the property came under the hammer for half a million Euros. But nobody was interested in buying the place. Still today Blue Chapel is up for sale. But we highly doubt that somebody will invest in this building complex anytime soon. The structure is simply too ramshackle and the compound too outlying. You would need plenty of money to safe this site. But to be honest: It’s too late for that.
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