C) THE RIGHT BRANCH
Many more mills have always been in the right branch of the river, due to the river's larger size and greater flow on that side; there the last mills were removed only during the construction of the embankments after the big flood of 1870. The Ponte Cestio was also known as "Ponte Ferrato" [bridge-with-iron] (see pict. E6) for the many mooring chains of the mills around it.
Often the mills' moorings were broken by the strength of the current, so it is not unusual to find in the old maps only the masonry ramp without the mill. In the Tempesta map (1593) 4 mills are visible (two mills and a ramp at the island and one moored to the Trastevere bank); in the Maggi map (1625) (pict. C1) three ramps without mills, all of them moored to the island, are shown. Falda (1676) (pict. C2) shows six mills, two moored to the island and four to the right Trastevere bank; in the Falda map one can also find two facing mills just downstream from Ponte Rotto. Nolli (1748) (pict. C3) also shows six mills, three moored to the island and two plus a ramp moored to the Trastevere bank. These locations perfectly match those indicated, two years before (1746), by Chiesa.
In the picture C4, an elaboration on the Lanciani map (1893-1901) are indicated the locations of the various mills obtained from the available documents.
The mills had names, often those of saints; a partial analysis of their locations, limited to the most recent ones, has been possible with the use of existing documents: the "brogliardi
", the maps of the Pio Gregoriano land register, the daily "Specchi Dimostrativi" [Demonstrative Reports] (SD - see also para D) of the Supervision of Grinding and the works of Cialdi and Moroni. The mills were classified according to their administration: those moored to the island were in the administrative Custody of the Island, while those moored to the Trastevere bank were in the Custody of S.Bonosa.
In the table can be found the mentions relevant to the individual mill and the respective year:
1823 | 1826 | 1834 | 1838 | 1845 | 1855 |
[1] Cialdi indicates only the presence of 5 floating mills on the right branch between the island and Trastevere, plus one on the bank (it is the mill with foundations Giuditta mentioned at paragraph B) |
|
Fonte |
SD | SD | SD | Cialdi | Moroni | ||
ISOLA Custody |
[3] |
[4] |
[1] |
[2] |
In the "brogliardi" and in the maps of the Pio Gregoriano land register only the urban blocks are recorded; however, as the sentence: "...in front of the mill of..." is often indicated in the records, it is possible to identify the mills of S.Francesco, SS.Annunziata and S.Maria located respectively "in front of" blocks II, III and IV of the island (see pict.C5 from the 1748 G.B.Nolli map).
Finally, as the Acquaroni engraving that represents a mill downstream from Ponte Cestio moored at Trastevere (see picture E4) may be dated around 1820, this mill can be identified as the S.Agostino mill, given that, at that time, the S.Nicola mill was still moored to the island.