My husband and I were lucky enough to travel to Italy in December of 2015, and of course, we had to see the eternal city of Venice with it’s Grand Canale, the Palazzo Ducale, the Basilica di San Marco and Cafe Florian, where such authors as Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, and Andy Warhol most surely enjoyed a cappuccino or two. One of the most noted sights in Venice is the “Bridge of Sighs,” or “Ponte dei Sospiri,” and it is perhaps one of the most misinterpreted. If you are fortunate enough to book a gondola ride with your loved one and have your photo taken just beneath the Bridge of Sighs, you are in good company. Countless photos have been taken of couples kissing on a gondola beneath the bridge, or kissing while posing in front of the bridge. Many romantics may think that the Bridge of Sighs is named for the sighs of the heart or the sighs of swooning couples deeply in love. But, the bridge’s name did not originate with romanticism or love.
The Bridge of Sighs was built in 1614, by the architect Antonio Contin, and was intended to be an entirely closed connection, or tunnel, between the inquisitor’s courtroom in the Palazzo Ducale, and the prison, known as the Prigioni Nuove. The facade of the bridge is quite spectacular, baroque, and fashioned entirely of limestone, and inside, the bridge has a double-wall, so that prisoners would cross without seeing, or speaking to anyone. The bridge was commissioned by the wealthy Doge, or chief magistrate, Marino Grimani, whose coat of arms can be seen sculpted in the middle of the limestone arch.
So, if the bridge was created as a passageway from the inquisitor’s courtroom and the prison, you can guess that it was not a popular trip for most. The name of the bridge stands for the sighs of the convicted, who, as they crossed the bridge, would look out of one of the two small windows, and look at Venice for the last time. It is said that when the prisoners looked upon their beloved city one last time, they would be overcome with extreme sadness and loss of liberty. As I walked through the dark tunnel from the Palazzo to the prison, I tried to imagine myself as a prisoner on her way to her cold cell of gray stone. After touring the dark rooms of the prison, I was overcome with the contrast of the lonely, dark isolation of a prison cell, set within such a beautiful and lively city, and the fact that the two would never meet. Definitely worthy of a sigh of desperation and loss.
But, as a hopeless romantic, I’ll go with the contemporary interpretation of the Bridge of Sighs. Next time my husband and I travel, we’ll be sure to get a photo of us kissing in front of the bridge.
Lord Byron wrote of the bridge in the first stanza of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. “I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure’s rise As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand.”