A walk through romantic canals to discover Venice’s countless bridges
(by Zairon, CC BY-SA 4.0 Wikimedia Commons)
In the sestiere of Cannaregio, in Rio di San Felice near the Great School of Mercy, we find one of the oldest bridges in the city. Moreover, it is the only one in the centre of Venice to have preserved its original structure. Although it was already made of stone and no longer of wood (like the very first medieval bridges), it still does not have the characteristic “bande” (side protections, called so since the 1600s). In the Venetian lagoon, there is only another one existing that preserves this feature: the Devil’s Bridge in Torcello, outside of Venice. Today we can admire the old bridges only thanks to the paintings of the great Venetian painters of the 1700s.