Rialto Amethyst chandelier Murano glass

Description

The Bridge of the Rialto

The need to join the banks of the canal, to make the market more accessible, led to the construction of a bridge of boats in 1180, called Quartarolo from the name of the coin that cost pedestrians to cross, as engraved by Jacopo de Barbari in the famous plant perspective dated 1500. Erected on posts in 1264, it was destroyed in 1310 by the conspirators of Bajamonte Tiepolo retreating after the failed attempt to seize the ducal seat as a last attempt to escape capture and punishment. Rebuilt in wood, it collapsed in 1450 for the large number of people who came to see the passage in the Grand Canal of the Marquise of Ferrara.

It was then rebuilt once again, but wider, drawhouse, with workshops over its entire length and closed by gates, as is represented by the famous painting by Vittore Carpaccio, exhibited in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. After falling partly in 1524, the Republic spent, in the following years, considerable sums for the maintenance of the bridge, which, being made of wood, lasted too little. He then launched a competition for its construction in stone in which many of the most famous architects of the time participated. A project by Michelangelo, Jacopo Sansovino and Palladio was rejected.

The construction was often postponed for economic reasons in the first place, given the considerable outlay by the Venetian State, but also for personal reasons of the various owners of the shops located on the wooden bridge who did not want to leave their business, thus losing their livelihood, during the whole period of construction of the new artifact.

Among the detractors of that time, tells a popular story, there were a man and a woman. The man was saying: «We will not be able to complete the construction of this bridge; perhaps it will collapse before being completed. It will be completed when this – and indicated his manly appendix – puts the nail». The woman exclaimed: «It will never be completed! I bet this one – and it indicated the low abdomen – I’ll burn it if they can finish it!».

Perhaps they did not know that much larger arches had been thrown elsewhere for many centuries. On the capitals of two pillars of Palazzo dei Camerlenghi, at the foot of the bridge, are carved two bas-reliefs representing a man squatting, with a third leg with a markedly clawed foot that grows between the two normal, and a woman squatting on the flames. They would, according to tradition, be the two scorned opponents of the architect Da Ponte.