TIMAVO. – The sources of the river, which after 40 km. of underground course emerges from the rock by the sea, were the site of a very ancient cult, which myth traces back to Diomede, exiled from Troy.
The purifying waters marked the boundary between the Veneti and the Histri (and, until Caesar, the boundary of Italy); they had a Roman sanctuary and were celebrated by Virgil. In the Christian age, the cult continued at the site, where St. John the Baptist was venerated; recent excavations have uncovered a tripartite basilica from the 5th century, rebuilt in the 11th century and again at the end of the 15th in an elegant building with ogival forms, recently restored, which attests to the enduring continuity of the place of prayer.
BIBL.: R. Pichler, Il castello di Duino, Trento 1882; B. Forlati-Tamaro, in Notizie degli scavi, 1925, p. 1 ff. Mario Mirabella Roberti