Milling the Tiber
Title
Description
While no longer visible to the modern visitor, from the 6th to 19th centuries, mills constituted an essential facet of the trading operations on the Tiber. The majority of mills were concentrated where the current was the strongest. Katherine Rinne identifies this as the region from Hospital Santo Spirito to Ponte Santa Maria (today, Ponte Rotto), but mostly at Tiber Island. In the 16th century, especially, most of the mills on the Tiber would have been floating, meaning that the mills were connected to the bank by a walkway which would lead to a small storehouse. At the furthest point of this structure, the wheel was suspended in the water on pontoons. One should not underestimate the mobility that the floating nature of mills afforded the stakeholders. For instance, Cesare Cenci relocated his mill from Ponte Sisto to the area of the Church of Santi Vincenzo ed Anastasio after the property changed hands under Sixtus V.
Various religious organizations and the Camera Apostolica owned most of the mills, but noble families such as the Cenci and Frangipane also owned mills. The monastery of SS. Cosma e Damiano sold and leased the anchoring sites for floating mills on Tiber Island and the Trastevere bank. Owners commonly rented out their mills to individual millers who were responsible for the work. Interestingly, the church also leased to nobles. The 1455 leasing of a site near Ponte Rotto by the canons S. Maria in Trastevere to Cipriano de Magnonibus included the right to build up to three mills on the property. The document included a royalties provision on these mills. It stipulated seven “rubla” of flour annually after the construction of the first mill, and more for each additional mill constructed. This inclusion shows that the canons had correctly identified this site as a prime area for milling. It additionally suggests that the construction of mills in the area was expected and even anticipated for in the contract.
Actually seeing these mills is probably the most difficult endeavor that a visitor might undertake while visiting the Tiber. While much of the urban landscape has changed, the natural one less so. One can still see the quickening of the river’s current near Tiber Island, and hopefully imagine a wheel puttering through its silty waves. A 1495 drawing from the Codex Escurialensis gives a downstream view of the mills near the Ponte Quattro Capi or the Ponte Fabricio, a bridge still standing today.
Creator
Source
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Munro, John H. “Industrial Energy from Water-Mills in the European Economy, 5th to 18th Centuries: the Limitations of Power.” In Economia E Energia Secc. XIII-XVIII, edited by Simonetta Cavaciocchi, 223-269.
Firenze: Le Monnier, 2002. Rinne, Katherine Wentworth. The Waters of Rome: Aqueducts, Fountains, and the Birth of the Baroque City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
Robbins, Deborah King. "A case study of medieval urban process: Rome's Trastevere (1250-1450)." Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1989.
Identifier
Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Description
While no longer visible to the modern visitor, from the 6th to 19th centuries, mills constituted an essential facet of the trading operations on the Tiber. The majority of mills were concentrated where the current was the strongest. Katherine Rinne identifies this as the region from Hospital Santo Spirito to Ponte Santa Maria (today, Ponte Rotto), but mostly at Tiber Island. In the 16th century, especially, most of the mills on the Tiber would have been floating, meaning that the mills were connected to the bank by a walkway which would lead to a small storehouse. At the furthest point of this structure, the wheel was suspended in the water on pontoons. One should not underestimate the mobility that the floating nature of mills afforded the stakeholders. For instance, Cesare Cenci relocated his mill from Ponte Sisto to the area of the Church of Santi Vincenzo ed Anastasio after the property changed hands under Sixtus V.
Various religious organizations and the Camera Apostolica owned most of the mills, but noble families such as the Cenci and Frangipane also owned mills. The monastery of SS. Cosma e Damiano sold and leased the anchoring sites for floating mills on Tiber Island and the Trastevere bank. Owners commonly rented out their mills to individual millers who were responsible for the work. Interestingly, the church also leased to nobles. The 1455 leasing of a site near Ponte Rotto by the canons S. Maria in Trastevere to Cipriano de Magnonibus included the right to build up to three mills on the property. The document included a royalties provision on these mills. It stipulated seven “rubla” of flour annually after the construction of the first mill, and more for each additional mill constructed. This inclusion shows that the canons had correctly identified this site as a prime area for milling. It additionally suggests that the construction of mills in the area was expected and even anticipated for in the contract.
Actually seeing these mills is probably the most difficult endeavor that a visitor might undertake while visiting the Tiber. While much of the urban landscape has changed, the natural one less so. One can still see the quickening of the river’s current near Tiber Island, and hopefully imagine a wheel puttering through its silty waves. A 1495 drawing from the Codex Escurialensis gives a downstream view of the mills near the Ponte Quattro Capi or the Ponte Fabricio, a bridge still standing today.
Creator
Alex Wachino (2018)Coverage
1400sSource
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Munro, John H. “Industrial Energy from Water-Mills in the European Economy, 5th to 18th Centuries: the Limitations of Power.” In Economia E Energia Secc. XIII-XVIII, edited by Simonetta Cavaciocchi, 223-269.
Firenze: Le Monnier, 2002. Rinne, Katherine Wentworth. The Waters of Rome: Aqueducts, Fountains, and the Birth of the Baroque City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
Robbins, Deborah King. "A case study of medieval urban process: Rome's Trastevere (1250-1450)." Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1989.