From the Tiber Island to the Ghetto

Isola Tiberina

(Tiber Island). The bridges spanning the divided river date from ancient Roman times.

Pons Fabricius. (62 BC). A beautiful stone bridge joining the island to the center of Ancient Rome. Formerly it had a bronze rail (the present marble parapet was added in 1679 under Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi). The oldest continuously used bridge in Rome.

Pons Cestius. (30 BC). The other superb bridge links the island to Trastevere on the west. On the pillars there used to be statues of Gration and Valens who rebuilt the bridge in 369 AD.
The Isola Tiberina, the Tiber River's only remaining island (till the Middle Ages there was at least one other) is boat-shaped and was clad in travertine in ancient times to disguise it as a ship. Its marble stern downstream is still visible today. The picturesque central square is dominated by a hospital that enjoys a good medical reputation and a superb view of the riverbanks.

Fatebenefratelli Hospital. This attractive medical institution was created in 1548 for the religious order whose name appropriately means "Do good brothers!" Known for its emergency ward.

San Giovanni Calibita. Annexed to the hospital is this lovely late Baroque church with the best painting on the island, Mattia Preti's "Flagellation of Christ".

Caetani Tower. This tower was built before the year 1000 by the Pierleone family who were of Jewish origin but produced Anacletus II, a powerful 12C anti-pope. It was the strong point of the adjacent Pierleone-Gaetani Castle.

Pierleoni-Caetani Castle. Another Medieval tower construction which served in 1087 as a refuge for the great champion of the Popes against the German emperors, the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and for several fugitive popes who fled from their enemies to be protected here by the impregnable Pierleone family, later followed by the equally powerful Caetani.

Isola Tiberina History 293 BC. The island entered medical history during a plague when the Roman Senate sent envoys to consult the medical god Aesculapius in Greece. They returned with a miracle-dispensing snake, which slipped overboard at this spot in the river. The temple was built where the snake landed, serving as a hospital for many centuries. 12C. Rahere, court jester to King Henry II of England, recovered from malaria in this hospital which was then attached to the Church of St. Bartolomeo all’Isola. He returned to London where he founded what is still known as St. Bart's Hospital. 19C. Until the river was tamed at the end of the last century by isolating it from the city with high banks, there were flourmills on pontoons floating on either side of the island. Old lithographs show these small buildings which used the river's current to grind up wheat for Rome's daily bread. This flux often waxed too strong and the flimsy edifices were washed away.

St. Bartolomeo all’Isola

Exterior 1624. The Baroque facade masks a church built in the 10 C by the Holy Roman Emperor "the wonder of the world", Otto III. Fancying himself as a fitting successor to the Caesars, Otto III personally installed two Popes, Gregory V, the first German pontiff, and Silvester II, the first French one. He built this church, which he could see from his palace on the Aventine Hill, on the ruins of the 3C BC Temple of Aesculapius.

The altar step (beautifully carved in the 12C) shows that there used to be an ancient spring of sacred medicinal water here.