Martana isle (Municipality of Marta)
Lat. 42.641701 Long. 11.991630
Piazza Umberto I, 1
01010 Marta (VT) Italy
Tel. ++39 076187381
The Martana isle (0,10 square km.) is situated 2 km. far in front of Marta village, it has the shape of a half moon representing the emergent half of a volcanic crater part of it, sunk in the lake. Is an interesting touristic excursion for those people who go to Marta on the Bolsena lake. Between the village and the isle there a ferryboat’s service more than once a day on condition to have a minimum number of passengers. The northern versant is like a steep wall overhanging the water while the southern side is less steep and it is also fertile, full of holm-oak and olive-trees. It is poor of etruscan and roman history; one tradition says that in 410 after Christ, the mortal remains of Santa Cristina were hidden here to protect them from the barbarian invasions; another tradition says that during the Goti’s rule, their Queen Amalasunta was segregated on the isle and then killed by a hired assassin on an order of her cousin and husband, greedy for power, who, after a little time, followed the same fate. The real history of the isle begins in 852 after Christ when a Pope’s document narrates something about it and of S.Stefano convent which lies on the isle. During the saracen invasions of IX century, the isle was the refuge for the littoral populations and they built a little centre that became then an indipendent town. the Lord Guittone of Bisenzio, greedy for power, was in 1254 nominated isle’s podestà but the community disliked him and swiftly dispersed. After that, was the Bisenzio family strenghtly driven out from the church which kept the sovereignty rights on the isle untill Castr’s duchy came. After Castro’s destruction in 1649, the two isles, Martana and Bisentina, went both back to the church. The convent in the isle welcomed various orders of monks: Benedettini, Agostiniani, Paolotti, but it was, already in 1459, empty. In the middle of XX century it becames a private property and its owner is now a society who provides it with electricity and manages its upkeep. The landing there is allowed only asking this society.
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