Bridge of Sighs

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This article is about the bridge in Venice. For other meanings see Bridge of Sighs (disambiguation).

The Bridge of Sighs (Italian: Ponte dei Sospiri) is one of many bridges in Venice built in the 16th century. The enclosed bridge is made of white limestone and has windows with stone bars. It passes over the Rio di Palazzo and connects the old prisons to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace.

The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge name, given by Lord Byron in the 19th century, comes from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice out the window before being taken down to their cells. In reality, the days of inquisitions and summary executions were over by the time the bridge was built, and the cells under the palace roof were occupied mostly by small-time criminals.^[1]

[edit] See also

The name "Bridge of Sighs" has since been applied by association to other similar covered bridges around the world, including:

• Waterloo Bridge which crosses the Thames in London
• a bridge in Oxford, England
• a bridge in Cambridge, England
• a bridge in Frankfurt am Main, Germany
• a bridge connecting the Allegheny County Courthouse proper to the jail building, both designed by American arctitect H.H. Richardson in 1884

In addition, Bridge of Sighs (album) is the title song of a record album by Robin Trower.

Bridge of Sighs is also the title of a poetic work by Thomas Hood.

[edit] External links

• Satellite image from Google Maps

[edit] References