From Santo Stefano Island there is a perfect view on Ventotene, from the jail wall permeated with history: here, in the penitentiary in 1795 and abandoned in 1965 - first and last Italian model of a panopticon, an ideal prison structure which allows complete surveillance without letting the prisoners be aware of that - have been held and confined some of the most important Italian figures, both political and not: among the many, Sandro Pertini, Umberto Terracini, Altiero Spinelli, Gaetano Bresci and Sante Pollastri.