Description
The Ponte alle Grazie is the five-arched bridge that spans the Arno in central Florence, from Via de' Benci to Piazza de' Mozzi in the Oltrarno, just downstream of the San Niccolò weir. Without the crowds of the Ponte Vecchio, it hides an unusual story.
Today's bridge is sober and functional: a reinforced-concrete beam faced in pietraforte, to blend in with the buildings around it. It was inaugurated on February 24, 1957, at a spot where the river runs faster.
The real reason to stop is the bridge that stood here before, the Rubaconte. It was built in 1237 by the podestà Rubaconte da Mandello, with nine arches: it was the longest and oldest in Florence, older than the Ponte Vecchio.
Little wooden houses, shrines, chapels and workshops sprouted on its piers. In one of those chapels, Santa Maria delle Grazie, there was a fresco of the Virgin believed to be miraculous, and from it the bridge took its new name, as early as the 15th century.
In 1390 a woman, Apollonia, obtained permission to live as a hermit in a wooden hut on a pier. Six years later two other women joined her, and in 1400 all three had themselves walled in, leaving only a window onto the bridge to receive alms.
They were the first murate, the “walled-in women”: from that community grew the monastery of Le Murate, on Via Ghibellina, where the nuns moved in 1424. Another community on the bridge, the Romite, founded a second women's monastery.
The Rubaconte withstood all the great floods, even that of 1333, which swept away the Ponte Vecchio. The little houses were demolished in 1876, to widen the roadway and let the tram through, and the parapets became cast iron.
The end came between August 3 and 4, 1944: retreating Nazi troops mined all the bridges over the Arno except the Ponte Vecchio. In 1945 a competition was announced to rebuild it, won by Giovanni Michelucci, Edoardo Detti and their group colleagues.
A curiosity: among the houses of the old bridge were born the Franciscan Blessed Tommaso Bellacci and the satirical poet Benedetto Menzini.
Today's bridge is sober and functional: a reinforced-concrete beam faced in pietraforte, to blend in with the buildings around it. It was inaugurated on February 24, 1957, at a spot where the river runs faster.
The real reason to stop is the bridge that stood here before, the Rubaconte. It was built in 1237 by the podestà Rubaconte da Mandello, with nine arches: it was the longest and oldest in Florence, older than the Ponte Vecchio.
Little wooden houses, shrines, chapels and workshops sprouted on its piers. In one of those chapels, Santa Maria delle Grazie, there was a fresco of the Virgin believed to be miraculous, and from it the bridge took its new name, as early as the 15th century.
In 1390 a woman, Apollonia, obtained permission to live as a hermit in a wooden hut on a pier. Six years later two other women joined her, and in 1400 all three had themselves walled in, leaving only a window onto the bridge to receive alms.
They were the first murate, the “walled-in women”: from that community grew the monastery of Le Murate, on Via Ghibellina, where the nuns moved in 1424. Another community on the bridge, the Romite, founded a second women's monastery.
The Rubaconte withstood all the great floods, even that of 1333, which swept away the Ponte Vecchio. The little houses were demolished in 1876, to widen the roadway and let the tram through, and the parapets became cast iron.
The end came between August 3 and 4, 1944: retreating Nazi troops mined all the bridges over the Arno except the Ponte Vecchio. In 1945 a competition was announced to rebuild it, won by Giovanni Michelucci, Edoardo Detti and their group colleagues.
A curiosity: among the houses of the old bridge were born the Franciscan Blessed Tommaso Bellacci and the satirical poet Benedetto Menzini.