VITAL HOT SPRINGS AND NATURAL SOURCES

Ischia, known as the Green Isle for its brilliant vegetation, could also be called the isle of natural waters. The Greeks, its first inhabitants, knew and appreciated them. Remains of a Greek temple have, in fact, been found in the district of Nitrodi. The Romans frequented instead Cavascura, one of the island’s few natural hot springs, and Nitrodi. Here, some votive tablets were unearthed, forming the most important set of such manufacts from the Roman era and which are now on display at Naples’s Museo Nazionale. The Calabrian physician Giulio Jasolino carried a thorough examination of the island’s thermal waters, discussing the results in the book “De rimedi naturali”, published in 1588. In the 1700s and 1800s countless celebrities would flock to the island for the salubrious quality of its mineral and thermal springs. The Ischitan philosophy of wellness developed and survives around this rich and vital natural resource.