The Aromas Itinerarium Salutis Association (AIS) continues to develop actions to recover the historical memory of the almost 400 apothecaries existing in Rome from the Middle Ages to the 20th century
Trastevere was one of the neighborhoods that concentrated the largest number of these places. Here numerous convent and monastic apothecaries dispensed innumerable medicines to the population and hospitals which for centuries had been in this same sector of the city to take care of the most vulnerable social groups.
The Benedictine nuns of the Monastery of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere carried out an important task in this sense, distributing in the aforementioned hospitals the remedies they elaborated with plants from the medicinal garden, accessible from the apothecary which was part of the monastery until 12 March 1936, date in which was transferred to the Vatican.
The Carmelite friars of the Convent of Santa Maria della Scala also created this same work in Trastevere through their apothecary, the only one still preserved in its original place. Both religious orders exchanged knowledge and plants from their respective medicinal gardens for centuries.
Last weekend, the Mother Abbess of the Monastery of Santa Cecilia, Mother Giovanna Valeziano, visited the apothecary of Santa Maria della Scala in the company of another sister, Sister Cecilia. This first meeting represents the beginning of a new collaboration through the AIS, whose goal is to restore and make visible the important role that Trastevere has historically played in the History of Medicine in Rome.
