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Spa of the island of Ischia

The thermal waters of Ischia are well known and used since ancient times. Already the first settlers Euboeans (eighth century. BC), as evidenced by the numerous archaeological finds at the site of Pithecusa and kept at the Archaeological Museum of Villa Arbusto in Lacco Ameno, appreciated and used the waters of the hot springs on the island. The Greeks in fact used the thermal waters to restore the spirit and the body and as a remedy for healing the aftermath of war wounds (in the pre-antibiotic era!) by attributing to the waters and vapors that gushed from the earth supernatural powers, not by chance at each spa town rose temples dedicated to deities such as Apollo at Delphi. If the Greeks were the first people to know the powers of the thermal waters, the Romans praised as a tool of healing and relaxation through the implementation of public Thermae and used it safely and profitably numerous sources of the island, the island did not in fact have been found, as is in Rome and in other spas of antiquity, imposing ruins of the Baths probably to the volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that frequently have violently shaken the cliffs. The decline of the power of Rome coincided with the abandonment of the use of bathing even in Ischia: there are not indeed traces of water use in the Middle Ages. Talking about Spa and hydrotherapy we refer also to the Renaissance and a decisive impetus to the modern spa medicine given by Giulio Iasolino, a Calabrian physician, professor at the University of Naples, who towards the end of 1500, attracted by the climate and the phenomena of secondary volcanism (fumaroles and hot springs), realizing the therapeutic potential of the spa, carried out a thorough survey of the sources of the island (for the first time is the hydrogeological wealth of the isle), he identified the composition of the water and performed detailed comments about their effects on many diseases that plagued his contemporaries. Since ‘600 to half of the ‘900 were built in the vicinity of the most famous hot springs, several factories and facilities that made the island of Ischia a renowned international destination of wellness where people treated many diseases of the body, and not only , celebrities such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, after the battle of Aspromonte, Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, Arturo Toscanini. Since the sixties, thanks to the foresight and entrepreneurial intuition of Cav. Angelo Rizzoli, the Island of Ischia and its waters are opened to mass tourism and an intense scientific activity consecrates thermal cures to the rank of alternative therapies for the treatment of many diseases already perfectly described by Iasolino.