From the waters of Tevere emerges the Tiberina Isle that, according to a popular legend, arose from the accumulation of the Tarquini’s corn reserves, that were thrown in the river by the Romans after that, in 509 BC, they had sent away from the city the last King Tarquinio the Superb.
The characteristic form of a “boat” derives as a commemoration from another tradition: it seems, indeed, that during a pestilence the Romans went to Esculapio’s, God of medicine, whose main sanctuary was in Greece, in Livio tells that “the Priests gave the Roman ambassadors the sacred snake, which, once they arrived in Rome by a boat, slipped into the river Tevere in order to reach the isle that, from that day onward, was consecrated with a temple devoted to the therapeutic cult of the God”. In the same area, in 1584 the congregation of St. Giovanni di Dio built the Hospital “Fatebenefratelli”, or St. Giovanni from the name of the annexed church.
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