Creepy Building (Convento di Sant’Antonio Abate)

One of the most fascinating surprises we stumbled across in Cisterna di Latina wasn’t a famous ruin or a tourist site at all. It was this massive abandoned building sitting quietly in town, looking like something between a monastery, factory, and forgotten fortress. It's rumored to have ghosts, of course.

After some digging, I finally figured out what it was: the former Convento di Sant’Antonio Abate, and you aren't allowed to go in (I'm guessing local teens do, though). There are legends/local discussions about underground passages connecting it to Palazzo Caetani and the caves beneath the town, and it sits just outside the old Renaissance town walls.

Originally built in the 1500s as a Franciscan convent by the Caetani family, it was later converted into an industrial mill before eventually being abandoned in the 1970s. That explains the strange mix of Renaissance architecture and industrial additions. Monastery windows beside loading docks. Ancient stone walls beside factory structures.

Apparently it once contained important frescoes and has long been part of local conversations about restoration and preservation.

Italy is full of moments like this. You turn a corner expecting an ordinary street and suddenly find a forgotten piece of history hiding in plain sight. I can't imagine it couldn't be a pretty big tourist draw if they decided to do something with it.

Willow probably would have campaigned to have her senior pics here if we were locals, lol.Read more