We’re roughly in 60 B.C. when Claudia Ottavia, stepsister and first wife of the cruel roman emperor Nero, is exiled to the island of Pandateria (modern Ventotene), on the false charge of adultery with Nero’s former tutor Anicetus. You may say that it is a terrible misfortune to be banished from Rome, but I would argue that there are worse places where to be isolated.

This peaceful, little island off the Western coast of Italy, the tiniest of the Pontines, is indeed a black diamond in the sea. Black, because of its volcanic origins which explains its characteristic dark rocks and sand, diamond, we’ll see why. It is difficult to describe the mystical atmosphere and the feeling of being in a place out of time that you can experience here, and it is hard to keep in mind that this island, which is now one of the most important scuba diving spot in Italy, in the past was a place of confinement.