written by Ilaria Gelichi
Ponte Vecchio is one of the most famous bridges in the world
and a symbol of the city of Florence.
It crosses the river Arno in its narrowest
part, where anciently there was a ford. During the Roman age and early Middle
Ages many bridges were built and destroyed by floods, especially by the famous
flood of 1333, one of the most violent. The bridge was then rebuilt with 3
arches in 1345, probably by Taddeo Gaddi
or Neri di Fioravante.
As was once
common Ponte Vecchio still has shops built on it, but in the past there were no
jewellers. In 1442 the authorities of the city stated that all butchers should move their shops on the
bridge. The purpose of this regulation was keeping the city’s streets clean and
remove the butchers from the city centre, keeping them away from palaces and
homes. They in fact used to throw discards and offal in the river Arno and the street they used to reach it were dirty and
stinky; in this way they could throw them directly into the river without
soiling the city.
In 1565 the
architect Giorgio Vasari built the
famous “corridoio vasariano”
(Vasari’s corridor) to link Palazzo Vecchio, the political and administrative
centre, to Palazzo Pitti, the Medici’s private palace. This corridor is almost 1 kilometre long (0,62 miles) and passes
over the shops of Ponte Vecchio. For this reason, in 1593 Ferdinando I of the Medici family stated that all butchers should stop
selling there and move from the bridge – he did not like this smelly activity
under his corridor. He then replaced the butchers with gold merchants and jewellers, as we can still see
nowadays.
Ponte
Vecchio is the only bridge in Florence
which was not destroyed by Germans during their retreat at the end of World War
II. According to some sources, this happened because of an express order by
Hitler (who had visited Florence and the bridge
before the war) and with the help of Gerhard
Wolf, the German representative in Florence.
For this reason and for other merits he obtained the honorary citizenship of the
city of Florence;
a plate with his name was also put on the bridge.
