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The basilica of San Bartolomeo all'Isola is over a thousand years old. It stands in Rome, on the Tiber Island, a place of particular importance for the history of Rome, halfway between Trastevere, the district of the first Christian preaching, and the ancient Jewish quarter.

The basilica of San Bartolomeo all’Isola is over a thousand years old. It stands in Rome, on the Tiber Island, a place of particular importance for the history of Rome, halfway between Trastevere, the district of the first Christian preaching, and the ancient Jewish quarter. This position in the middle of the Tiber, a key place for crossing the river, well expresses one of the most characteristic aspects of this basilica, which gathers memories linked to different and distant worlds, united together in a unique and original synthesis of faith, art and history.

The basilica was built in a place of pilgrimage already known: for centuries, in fact, there had been a temple dedicated to Aesculapius on the Tiber Island, and many people visited the sacred place to implore their healing. In 998, the German emperor Otto III built the church to house the remains of two martyrs: St Bartholomew the Apostle, whose body is kept in the high altar, and St Adalbert, bishop of Prague, who was killed in 997 while evangelising pagan populations at the northernmost border of Christian Europe.

The new building brought about a transformation in the fabric of the Tiber Island, expressive of the general change that took place in the city of Rome following the spread of Christianity. The well in the basilica, a very rare case, is an example of this process: it probably dates back to Roman times and its waters were considered thaumaturgical. Christians have been able to preserve and enhance that tradition: the well has become an evangelical symbol. In fact, in the ancient marble vera that overlooks it, there is a central image of Jesus that suggests to the beholder an association with the words from the Gospel of John: He who is thirsty, let him come to me and drink who believes in me; as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his bosom (Jn 7:38).

I Sacconi Rossi

The Sacconi rossi, based in the Basilica of San Bartolomeo all'Isola, were the members of the Veneranda confraternita de’ devoti di Gesù Cristo al Calvario e di Maria Santissima Addolorata (Venerable Brotherhood of the Devotees of Jesus Christ at Calvary and of Our Lady of Sorrows) of Rome, created in the 17th century.

Their task was to fish out and give burial, if no one claimed them, to those drowned in the Tiber, and this pious profession of charity was carried out in the characteristic red hood and cloak, hence the nickname.

Burial was not trivial: with an entirely baroque necrophilic taste, the stripped bones were laid to rest in a ‘decorative’ manner in the underground cemetery of the convent of Santa Maria Addolorata dei Sacconi Rossi, an isolated building near the left of the basilica (which can still be visited, it turns out, on 2 November. The Crypt of the Capuchins in Via Veneto has a similar setting). The custom is mentioned in the film Mondo cane (1962).

Since the early 1990s, on 2 November, the day of the Commemoration of the Dead, with the patronage of the San Giovanni Calibita Hospital (run by the Fatebenefratelli) a night procession in memory of the drowned has taken place on the Tiber Island, starting from the church of San Giovanni Calibita, in which the members of the Confraternity take part, in costume.

Their task was to fish out and give burial, if no one claimed them, to those drowned in the Tiber, and this pious profession of charity was carried out in the characteristic red hood and cloak, hence the nickname.

Burial was not trivial: with an entirely baroque necrophilic taste, the stripped bones were laid to rest in a ‘decorative’ manner in the underground cemetery of the convent of Santa Maria Addolorata dei Sacconi Rossi, an isolated building near the left of the basilica (which can still be visited, it turns out, on 2 November. The Crypt of the Capuchins in Via Veneto has a similar setting). The custom is mentioned in the film Mondo cane (1962).

Since the early 1990s, on 2 November, the day of the Commemoration of the Dead, with the patronage of the San Giovanni Calibita Hospital (run by the Fatebenefratelli) a night procession in memory of the drowned has taken place on the Tiber Island, starting from the church of San Giovanni Calibita, in which the members of the Confraternity take part, in costume.

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