Description
The Arno is the river of Florence and the main waterway of Tuscany: it rises on Monte Falterona, in the Apennines, and after 241 kilometers flows into the Ligurian Sea, just past Pisa. In Florence it crosses the center between its riverside avenues and bridges, from east to west.
Florence was born here because there was an excellent ford, near what is today the Ponte Vecchio. For centuries the river was a road: logs from the Casentino came down to the city lashed into rafts called “foderi”, and barges, the “navicelli”, came up from the sea.
The fun is in watching it from the bridges, and there are many. The Ponte Vecchio, from 1345, with its shops over the water, is the first one people look for. The Ponte Santa Trinita dates from 1570: Ammannati built it to a design by Michelangelo, and it was rebuilt in 1958.
Further upstream is the Ponte alle Grazie, from 1957, heir to an ancient bridge. Around the city there are also the flood plaques, marking the level the water reached in different eras: a way to grasp what the river has been.
It has a double character. In summer it can almost disappear, so much so that barge traffic would stop and goods went on by land. In autumn it turns violent: documents record 172 floods between 1177 and 1941.
The one of 1333 swept away the bridge that stood where the Ponte Vecchio is today and, according to the Florentines, also the Mutilated Statue, which represented Mars, the city's ancient protector.
The most devastating in living memory was that of November 4, 1966: the water flooded the entire historic center, with dozens of victims and enormous damage to the artistic heritage.
The river's name has entered the language. When Alessandro Manzoni wanted to give The Betrothed a livelier Italian, he went to Florence to “rinse his clothes in the Arno”, and the saying has stuck.
Anyone who wants to see a different Arno can follow it upstream, to Arezzo. There the Romanesque Ponte Buriano is perhaps the one painted in the background of Leonardo's Mona Lisa.
Don't miss
• The Ponte Vecchio.
• The Ponte Santa Trinita.
• The flood plaques.
• The Ponte Buriano, near Arezzo.
Did you know?
• Until the 1940s the Arno was navigable as far as Signa.
• In the summer of 1954 the Arno's flow in Florence dropped to just one cubic meter per second, against an average of about 60.
Florence was born here because there was an excellent ford, near what is today the Ponte Vecchio. For centuries the river was a road: logs from the Casentino came down to the city lashed into rafts called “foderi”, and barges, the “navicelli”, came up from the sea.
The fun is in watching it from the bridges, and there are many. The Ponte Vecchio, from 1345, with its shops over the water, is the first one people look for. The Ponte Santa Trinita dates from 1570: Ammannati built it to a design by Michelangelo, and it was rebuilt in 1958.
Further upstream is the Ponte alle Grazie, from 1957, heir to an ancient bridge. Around the city there are also the flood plaques, marking the level the water reached in different eras: a way to grasp what the river has been.
It has a double character. In summer it can almost disappear, so much so that barge traffic would stop and goods went on by land. In autumn it turns violent: documents record 172 floods between 1177 and 1941.
The one of 1333 swept away the bridge that stood where the Ponte Vecchio is today and, according to the Florentines, also the Mutilated Statue, which represented Mars, the city's ancient protector.
The most devastating in living memory was that of November 4, 1966: the water flooded the entire historic center, with dozens of victims and enormous damage to the artistic heritage.
The river's name has entered the language. When Alessandro Manzoni wanted to give The Betrothed a livelier Italian, he went to Florence to “rinse his clothes in the Arno”, and the saying has stuck.
Anyone who wants to see a different Arno can follow it upstream, to Arezzo. There the Romanesque Ponte Buriano is perhaps the one painted in the background of Leonardo's Mona Lisa.
Don't miss
• The Ponte Vecchio.
• The Ponte Santa Trinita.
• The flood plaques.
• The Ponte Buriano, near Arezzo.
Did you know?
• Until the 1940s the Arno was navigable as far as Signa.
• In the summer of 1954 the Arno's flow in Florence dropped to just one cubic meter per second, against an average of about 60.