The "Mombello" Psychiatric Hospital, in Limbiate, near Milan, definitively replaced the old and inadequate Senavra hospital, as the Psychiatric Hospital for the Province of Milan, in 1879. At this date the Hospital hosted more than 1100 patients; they arrived at their maximum of about 3000 in 19252.
From 1915 to 1925, Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti worked in Mombello, where he started his studies on experimental epilepsy which later conducted him to the invention of electroshock therapy.
This big complex has been used as a psychiatric hospital until 1999. Actually (2008), excluded the beautiful central "Villa Pusterla Crivelli" (where Napoleon Bonaparte resided for some months during the period of the Cisalpine Republic) recently restored, the old hospital buildings are in a state of abandonment.
