Montecristo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Monte Cristo.
Montecristo is a small Italian islet, approximately 4.08 kilometers across at its widest point, located about halfway between Corsica and mainland Italy; south of Elba and west of Giglio. It is part of the Tuscan Archipelago. The island is probably best known as a fictional setting in Alexandre Dumas's novel The Count of Monte Cristo, but the actual island does not correspond closely to the description in the novel.
Monte Cristo in Italian means “The mountain of Christ", which lead some to believe is the reason Dumas picked it for the book.
The island is remote and kept by the Italian government as a nature preserve and hunting park, and only accessible by private yacht and permit. There are no structures on the island, though the ruins of a 13th-century monastery (destroyed by pirates in 1553) are visible.
