| Ponte delle Guglie | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Coordinates | 45°26′37″N12°19′32″E / 45.443656°N 12.32552°E Coordinates: 45°26′37″N12°19′32″E / 45.443656°N 12.32552°E |
| Carries | pedestrians |
| Crosses | Cannaregio Canal |
| Locale | Venice, Italy |
| Other name(s) | Bridge of Spires |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | Arch bridge |
| History | |
| Opened | 1580 |
The Ponte delle Guglie is one of two bridges in Venice, Italy, to span the Cannaregio Canal. It lies near the western end of the canal, by the Venezia Santa Lucia railway station.
Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers. In 2018, 260,897 people resided in the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice. Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million.
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a European country consisting of a peninsula delimited by the Italian Alps and surrounded by several islands. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean sea and traversed along its length by the Apennines, Italy has a largely temperate seasonal climate. The country covers an area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi) and shares open land borders with France, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. Italy has a territorial exclave in Switzerland (Campione) and a maritime exclave in the Tunisian sea (Lampedusa). With around 60 million inhabitants, Italy is the fourth-most populous member state of the European Union.
The Cannaregio Canal is one of the main waterways of Venice, Italy.
An earlier wooden bridge was built in 1285. It was replaced by the current stone and brick bridge in 1580. [1] It was restored in 1641 and 1677, and was totally rebuilt in 1823 at which time spires were added. Further restoration took place in 1987 with the addition of metal handrails, stone steps, and access for the disabled. The spires lie at each end of the bridge. A carved balustrade runs on either side of the walkway, and gargoyles decorate its arch. It is the only bridge in Venice adorned with spires from whence it takes its name ("Bridge of Spires").
A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, often a skyscraper or a church tower, similar to a steep tented roof. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass.
In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between. Architects often used multiple gargoyles on a building to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimize the potential damage from a rainstorm. A trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater typically exits through the open mouth. Gargoyles are usually an elongated fantastical animal because the length of the gargoyle determines how far water is directed from the wall. When Gothic flying buttresses were used, aqueducts were sometimes cut into the buttress to divert water over the aisle walls.
An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it.
For those arriving on foot from Piazzale Roma or the Venezia Santa Lucia railway station, the bridge leads into the area of the Venetian Ghetto and the Strada Nova that leads to Piazza San Marco.
Piazzale Roma is a square in Venice, Italy, at the entrance of the city, at the end of the Ponte della Libertà. Piazzale Roma and nearby Tronchetto island are the only places in Venice's insular urban core accessible to ground motor vehicles, such as automobiles and buses.
The Venetian Ghetto was the area of Venice in which Jews were compelled to live by the government of the Venetian Republic. The English word ghetto is derived from the Jewish ghetto in Venice. The Venetian Ghetto was instituted on 29 March 1516 and is not the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world, as it is very often falsedly repeated It was not the first time that Jews in Venice were compelled to live in a segregated area of the city.
Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as la Piazza. All other urban spaces in the city are called campi ("fields"). The Piazzetta is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner. The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are commonly considered together. This article relates to both of them.
The bridge itself is located just before the point where the Cannaregio Canal flows into the Grand Canal, just inside the bend that leads to the Rialto Bridge.
The Grand Canal is a channel in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city.
The Rialto Bridge is the oldest of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. Connecting the sestieri (districts) of San Marco and San Polo, it has been rebuilt several times since its first construction as a pontoon bridge in the 12th century, and is now a significant tourist attraction in the city.
