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Tiber Island
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The Tiber Island (Italian: Isola Tiberina, Latin: Insula Tiberina), in Rome, Italy, is the only island in the Tiber river on its way through Rome. In the southern bend of the Tiber, this a boat-shaped islet is approximately 270 m in length and 67 m at its widest, the island has always been associated with medicine. It was home to an ancient temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine and healing and is still the seat of a hospital (though not on the same site as the temple).
Because the island has been linked to the rest of Rome by two bridges since antiquity, it used to be simply called Insula Inter-Duos-Pontes ("the island between the two bridges"). The Ponte Fabricio, the only original bridge in Rome, connects the island from the northeast to the Field of Mars in the rione Sant'Angelo (left bank). The Ponte Cestio, of which only some original parts survived, connects the island to Trastevere on the south (right bank).
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Legend has it that after the fall of the hated tyrant Tarquinius Superbus (510 BC), the angry Romans threw his body into the Tiber. It settled onto the bottom, where dirt and silt accumulated around it. (It is true that Tiber is an ait formed mostly by sand in the river.) Another version says that the people gathered up the wheat and grain of their despised ruler and threw it into the Tiber, where it eventually became the foundation of the island.
Owing to its dark origins, the Tiber Island was, in Roman times, considered a place of ill omen. Until the temple was built, nobody went onto the island, and only the worst criminals and the contagiously ill were condemned to pass the remainder of their lives on it.
Accounts say that in 293 BC, there was a great plague in Rome. Upon consulting the Sibyl, the Roman Senate was instructed to build a temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing, and sent a delegation to Epidauros obtain a statue of the deity. The Romans obtained a snake from the temple, which curled around the ship's mast as soon as it is aboard, deemed as a good sign. Upon its return trip up the Tiber river, the snake slithered off the ship and swimming onto the island. This was seen as the god's own choice for his temple's location, and the temple was built on the island, thus ending the plague.
This location was probably chosen for the temple due to its separation from the rest of the city, which meant that it would not be reached by plague and illnesses.
The island eventually became so identified with the temple it supported that, as a reminder of the miraculous event, it was modeled to resemble a ship. Travertine facing was added in mid or late first century by the banks to resemble a ship's prow and stern, and an obelisk was erected in the middle, symbolizing the vessel's mast. Walls were put around the island, and it came to resemble a Roman ship. Faint vestiges of Aesculapius' caduceus with an entwining snake is still visible on the "prow".
After the Temple of Aesculapius, shrines dedicated to other deities were also erected after the 2nd century BC, namely: [1]
- Jupiter Jurarius ("guarantor of oaths")
- Semo Sancus Dius Fidius, also a witnesser of oath
- Gaia, yet another witnesser of oath
- Faunus, boundary deity
- Veiovis
- Tiberinus, river god
- Bellona, war goddess
In the Christian age the obelisk was replaced by a column with a cross on the top. After it was destroyed in 1867, Pope Pius IX had an aedicula, called "Spire", put in its place. This monument, designed by Ignazio Giacometti, is decorated with the statues of the four saints related to the island: St. Bartholomew, St. Paulinus of Nola, St. Francis and St. John. Parts of the obelisk are now in the museum in Naples.
In 998 Emperor Otto III had a new basilica, that of San Bartolomeo all'Isola, built over the Aesculapius temple's ruins on the eastern side (downstream end) of the island. [1] This was dedicated to his friend, the martyr Adalbert of Prague, the name of St. Bartholomew was added only later. In the early 20th century, prior to the Fascist regime's restoration of ancient place names, the Tiber Island was called the isola di S. Bartolomeo. [2] Likewise, for a time, Cestius' Bridge was called the Ponte S. Bartolomeo.
Although the Aesculapius temple now lies deep under San Bartolomeo, the island can still be considered a place of healing, as a modern-day hospital operated by the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God (Fatebenefratelli). stands on the western half of the island since 1584. [3]
During summer, the island hosts the Isola del Cinema film festival[4].
The island was featured in the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons after Robert Langdon parachutes onto the island after saving the Vatican City from an antimatter bomb
In addition to Fabricus' and Cestius' bridges, another bridge is visible from the downstream (east) end of the island--the pons Aemilius.
- ^ a b Claridge, Amanda (1998). Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
- ^ Bill Thayer. Annotation to A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome).
- ^ Official Website of the Fatebenefratelli (Order of the Brothers of St. John of God)
- ^ Isola del Cinema - Estate Romana 2007. Comune di Roma.
- Isola Tiberina English and Italian: history, maps and images
- LacusCurtius • Rome — Tiber Island (Platner & Ashby, 1929)
- Satellite image of the island
- John 21:1-25 -- Initiation drama of Gentiles at the Dead Sea in the pesher of the Gospel of John by Dr. Barbara Thiering.