The stone monument known as the guglia or "spire is the work of Ignazio Jacometti in 1869. It is in the form of a four-fronted aedicule on a plinth, surmounted by a highly decorated neo-Baroque pyramidal finial ending by a ball and cross. There is a statue in a niche on each side, and the inscriptions indicate who they represent: SS Bartholomew, Francis of Assisi, Paulinus of Nola and John of God. The statue of St. Bartholomew faces the Basilica di San Bartolomeo all'Isola which bears his name.
This structure was commissioned by Pope Pius IX, allegedly to commemorate the First Vatican Council which is mentioned in the dedicatory inscription. It actually replaced a free-standing column which was knocked over and smashed by a badly controlled wagon in 1867. This feature was known in the 19th century as the Colonna infame, because once a year on it was posted an official list of prominent people who had not received Communion at Mass during the Easter season. According to the rule of the Catholic Church, this entails automatic excommunication.
The inscription reads: Pius IX Pont[ifex] Max[imus] in columnae locum quae plaustrum impetu quassata conciderat pecunia sua fieri erigique iussit anno Christiano MDCCCLXIX Concilio Vaticano ineunte. ("Pius IX, the chief priest, ordered [this] to be made and put up using his own money in the place where the column fell which had been shattered by a collision with a cart, in the Christian year 1869, the Vatican Council having started".) (
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"Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. He has also been identified as Nathanael or Nathaniel, who appears in the Gospel of John when introduced to Jesus by Philip although many modern commentators reject the identification of Nathanael with Bartholomew.
According to the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Bartholomew's martyrdom is commemorated on the first day of the Coptic calendar, which currently falls on September 11 (corresponding to August 29 in the Julian calendar). Eastern Christianity honours him on June 11 and the Roman Catholic Church honours him on August 24. The Church of England and other Anglican churches also honor him on August 24.
The Armenian Apostolic Church honours Saint Bartholomew along with Saint Thaddeus as its patron saints.
Bartholomew English for Bar Talmai comes from the Aramaic: bar-Tolmay native to Israel "son of Talmai" or "son of the furrows". Bartholomew is listed among the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in the three synoptic gospels: Matthew,[10:1–4] Mark,[3:13–19] and Luke,[6:12–16] and also appears as one of the witnesses of the Ascension[Acts 1:4,12,13]; on each occasion, however, he is named in the company of Philip. He is not mentioned by the name Bartholomew in the Gospel of John, nor are there any early acta, the earliest being written by a pseudepigraphical writer, Pseudo-Abdias, who assumed the identity of Abdias of Babylon and to whom is attributed the Saint-Thierry (Reims, Bibl. mun., ms 142) and Pseudo-Abdias manuscripts.
In art Bartholomew is most commonly depicted with a beard and curly hair at the time of his martyrdom. According to legends he was skinned alive and beheaded so is often depicted holding his flayed skin or the curved flensing knife with which he was skinned.
Due to the nature of his martyrdom, Bartholomew is the patron saint of tanners, plasterers, tailors, leatherworkers, bookbinders, farmers, housepainters, butchers, and glove makers. In works of art the saint has been depicted being skinned by tanners, as in Guido da Siena's reliquary shutters with the Martyrdoms of St. Francis, St. Claire, St. Bartholomew, and St. Catherine of Alexandria. Popular in Florence and other areas in Tuscany, the saint also came to be associated with salt, oil, and cheese merchants." (
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