The Cult of Isis in ancient Fiesole

Many myths are linked with the name of Egyptian goddess Isis; she was the wife of Osiris, she composed the god’s remains when he was killed and she was the mather of Horo. She was also assimilated with the goddess Hathor, the star Sirius and in Ptolomaic times, when Osiris became Dionysus, she became Demeter. The cult celebrate motherhood and life, the wisdom and justice.
Her cult was also brought to Rome during Caligola’s reign (37-41 A.D.) and there it became very popular in spite of the opposition of the Senate.

The penetration of cult in Florence and Fiesole was due to veterans of roman army came back from oriental campaigns at the beginning of II century.
In the first time the Isis religion devoloped in Italy assume a voluptuary form and was followed by prostitutes, but when arrived in Fiesole it was already more chasten. The cult rapidly spread all over the Roman Empire, so that we could even consider it to be the first universal religion. The area around File in Egypt was the last bulwark of heathenism against Christianity but even there eventually the temples dedicated to Isis were, for the most part, transformed into Coptic churches.

Few people know that the cult of Isis in Roman dominated Fiesole (which consequently had to worship the same gods) became very popular and there was even a temple dedicated to the goddess of the Nile, built in the II century A.D., halfway up the Acropolis hillside of San Francesco.

In fact a statue of Isis (II cent. A.D.), which can now be seen on the ground floor of the Fiesole Archeological Museum, was found in a vineyard between the Basilica of S. Alessandro and the Seminary in 1883.

Statue of Isis from Fiesole

The temple was probably a little ISEO and not like the bigger one in Florence (in Piazza S. Firenze, 50 X 25 meters) which had Attic order sandstone colomns covered in stucco and contained several sculptures and marble bases for the numerous gifts that were offered to the goddess “granter of miraculous favours”.
The statue of the Fiesole goddess is portrayed in a long gown, sitting weeping over the grave of her husband Osiris buried at Taposiri in Egypt. Her head and most of her left arm, which was probably covering her face in an attitude of grief, are missing. The little uterus-shaped bowl resting on her knees was the funeral unguentarium and ears of wheat held in her right hand are one of the attributes of Isis.

On the base an inscription tells us that the statue was offered to Fiesole temple by the Roman veteran Gargennius Massimus in his brother Gargennius Macrinus’s name.A square base with the lower part of the statue of Osiris (probably part of the same sculpture including the one of Isis) was found close to the statue of Isis.
The statue of Osiris was probably made in human semblance with the pastoral scourge in his hand; this was how he was usually represented in ancient paintings and sculpture.

Enio Pecchioni