Church of San Bartolomeo all’Isola
On the Tiber Island, between the Trastevere district and the Jewish quarter, stands the thousand-year-old church of San Bartolomeo all’Isola, built at the end of the 10th century by order of Emperor Otto III on an ancient temple dedicated to Aesculapius, god of medicine.
Initially dedicated to Sant’Adalbert, in the period between the 11th and 12th centuries, it was the subject of numerous restoration interventions.
Damaged beyond repair by a flood of the Tiber in 1557, the sacred building was rebuilt in the 17th century by the architect Orazio Torriani. Externally, San Bartolomeo all’Isola has a baroque façade on two floors and a portico; internally, it is divided into three naves supported by ancient columns. The church houses the remains of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, whose body rests in the red porphyry sarcophagus under the main altar, and those of St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, killed in 997 while he was intent on evangelizing the pagan populations of the North -Europe.
Among the most interesting works that you can admire inside, we mention the Flagellation of Christ, a painting by Antonio Carracci (1589-1618), nephew of Annibale.
The church is also known for being the seat of the “Venerable confraternity of devotees of Jesus Christ at Calvary and of Our Lady of Sorrows”, a congregation founded on the initiative of a group of faithful in 1760. The confraternity obtained permission from the Pope Pius VI Braschi to create a cemetery in the basement for the deceased brothers. During the burial, the followers wore a red cloak with a hood which earned them the popular nickname of Sacconi Rossi. From the beginning, they dedicated themselves to the recovery of the bodies found in Tiber whose fleshless bones were placed in the crypt of the convent which then became a cemetery similar to the more famous one of the Capuchin crypt in Via Veneto.
Photo: Turismo Roma editorial team
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