The Tiber Island, a fascinating history.

Recently, I took a water bus on the Thames in London between Blackfriars and Westminster; I admired the grandeur of a great city that was made such also thanks to its important waterway. The Thames is a fluvial artery that saw Romans cargo ships, Tudor galleons as well as clipper ships that made the British Empire great. Today, along its banks rise both the shadows of London's past glories as well as the skyscrapers of the City, one of the two most important financial centres in the world. The greatest cities in the world were founded on rivers: London, Paris, Florence, Prague, Vienna, New York and Rome. It is probably the latter that made a long lasting impact on the use of rivers from the age of the empire to our day, connecting the Eternal City to the known world. If we should then seek the original "holy" river, which one would it be? It would be the Tiber, sacred to the Romans, it became a new Jordan when Rome superseded Jerusalem as the Rome of the Popes (at least theoretically) and surely, while today, it would need a thorough clean up, it still shows traces of its former glories.

One of the most fascinating parts of the river is perhaps the Tiber Island, located in the southmost area of the historical centre, between the Jewish quarter and the Trastevere quarter, since Roman times it has been for over 2,000 years a place of healing. It is still connected to the mainland through two surviving bridges from antiquity: the Pons Cestius, leading to the Trastevere and the Pons Fabricius leading to the Jewish quarter, both dating to the 1st century BC. The Pons Fabricius, is also known as Bridge of the Four Heads, because of the ancient two-headed sculptures at each corner and it remains intact since antiquity.

According to legend, the island was formed in 510 BC, when the Romans threw into the water the body of the evil tyrant, Tarquinius Superbus, his body settled to the bottom of the river where dirt and slit accumulated around it, eventually forming the island - another less macabre version reports that the Romans threw Tarquinius' wheat and grain into the river and eventually the island was formed.

The island was considered a dodgy place during the early Roman Republic, up until the 3rd century BC.

It was then that it became a vast and magnificent sanctuary dedicated to Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine and healing. According to various accounts, in 293 BC a massive plague took hold of Rome, the Roman Senate consulted the Sibyl and was instructed to build a temple in honour of the god; a delegation even went to Epidauros in Greece to obtain a statue of the deity. It was customary to bring a snake onboard ships at the time, and interestingly that one curled itself around the mast and that was taken a good sign. To this day the image of snakes curling around a mast are a symbol of medicine. And so the island was deemed a good place given the godly sign. 

Eventually, the island became associated with the temple which was modelled to resemble a ship sailing the river, Travertine prow and stern were added, as well as an obelisk erected in the middle, acting as a mast. Part of the prow still survives and there is still a surviving relief of Aesculapius' rod with an entwining snake. In the 19th century the obelisk was removed to make way for a neo-Renaissance obelisk with the four patron saints of the island: Paulinus of Nola, Francis, John and Bartholomew. Parts of the obelisk are now in museums in Naples and Munich.

In 998, Emperor Otto III, had a basilica dedicated to the martyr Saint Bartholomew built on the island with the apostle's relics brought from Benevento. The entire island was dedicated to the saint. A nice anecdote links the island as a place of healing to London: in 1123, Augustinian canon Paul Rahere travelled to Rome on a pilgrimage but fell ill, he was hospitalised at Saint Bartholomew on the Tiber Island and when he came back to London he vowed to build a church as a sign of thankfulness: that became the church of Saint Bartholomew the Great, also a place of healing as a hospital that bears its name was also founded adjacent to the church. Meanwhile, the island remained a place of healing, maintaining that legacy from antiquity; during the Renaissance many hospitals were being restored, enlarged and founded by the Church, in 1554 the hospital on the island was enlarged and it became known as the Fatebenefratelli. In 1943, during the Nazi occupation of Rome, when the Jews were being rounded up, Dr. Borromeo, the then head of the hospital invented a "deadly" and highly contagious illness known as the "Syndrome K", as the SS were highly scared of contagion, the hospital managed to save dozens of Jews, just a stone's throw from the Jewish quarter! 

After over two thousand years the island still manages to impress and to be a place of healing, and through the river it is on, it connects it with its sister foundation in London! What marvels these rivers can do.