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MARTANA ISLAND - BOLSENA LAKE
- ITALY:
The Martana island lies across from the town of Marta.
Like the Bisentina island,
it was a free commune in the Middle Ages, and then
followed the Papal fortunes.
With respect to the other island, Martana
is harsher, but the landscape in certain parts
of the year is particularly enchanting.
While it had a flourishing religious
life in the Middle Ages, the island is known as die place
where Amalasunta met her tragic fate.
Daughter of Theodoric and queen of the
Goths, when her father died, according to his dispositions,
she took over the regency of the Ostrogothic kingdom
for about nine years (526-535), since her son Atalaric was
still too young.
Despite the fact mat there were no precedents for the regency
of a woman, and that it was Theodoric who had imposed
Amalasunta, she is remembered in the sources as "learned
and with a virile soul".
She participated directly in the political activities
of directing the kingdom, re-established good relations
with Byzantium and favored the Roman element.
When she fell out with the Ostrogothic nobles she was
forced to divide the kingdom with her cousin Theodatus,
by whom she was assassinated in 535.
Historical sources are not veiy clear as to just where
Amalasunta was killed.
In his Gothic War (Debello Gothico) procopius of Caesarea
tells us: "There is a lake in Tuscany,
called Vulsinio, in which rises an island that is truly
small but furnished with a strong castle.
It was there that Theodatus kept Amalasunta
prisoner".
That island could also be Bisentina on which, at die time,
mere was a fortification, but a consolidated tradition,
upheld by a majority, says that Martana was the
fatal island of die Ostrogotii queen.
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BOLSENA 
