Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy

Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy

Florence's Ponte Vecchio (which means "Old Bridge"), crosses the Arno River, and is an inhabited bridge, common in Europe during the Middle Ages when merchants and residences occupied the space. "The Ponte Vecchio is more than a bridge. It is a street, a marketplace, a public square, and an enduring icon of Florence," Dupré writes. Today, she said, the bridge houses gold shops and, on the top level, the "secret" Vasari Corridor that Renaissance nobility once used to cross between the Pitti and Vecchio palaces. The bridge is considered to be the first segmental arch bridge built in the West, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and "is an outstanding engineering achievement of the European Middle Ages." Built in 1345, it required fewer piers than the Roman semicircular-arch design, as the shallower segmental arch offered less obstruction to navigation and freer passage to floodwaters. Its design is generally attributed to Taddeo Gaddi, better known as a painter and pupil of Giotto. During World War II, it was the only bridge in Florence spared from destruction by German bombs, because Hitler took a fancy to it.