Ponte alla Carraia: The Day Hell Came to the Arno
Why is it significant?
Walk out to the middle of the bridge and look downstream this time: the river runs wide and slow towards the west, past the green banks of the Cascine park, and on the Oltrarno side the great dome of San Frediano in Cestello sits right on the water. The bridge under your feet is plain and modern.
Key Facts
| Place | Ponte alla Carraia: The Day Hell Came to the Arno |
|---|---|
| Address | Ponte alla Carraia, 50124 Firenze FI, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 43.77030, 11.24710 |
| Part of Walk | Florence Across the Arno: Oltrarno Artisans, Santo Spirito & San Frediano |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk out to the middle of the bridge and look downstream this time: the river runs wide and slow towards the west, past the green banks of the Cascine park, and on the Oltrarno side the great dome of San Frediano in Cestello sits right on the water. The bridge under your feet is plain and modern. Its story is anything but.
A bridge was first built here around 1220, only the second one in Florence after the Ponte Vecchio, and for a while it was simply called the New Bridge. Its later name, alla Carraia, comes from the carts, the carri, that rumbled across it loaded with wool and goods for the workshops of the Oltrarno. This was a working bridge for a working quarter.
And on the first of May 1304, the people of San Frediano decided to put on a show. The chronicler Giovanni Villani tells us that they had it announced through the city: whoever wants news of the other world, come to the Carraia bridge. On boats and rafts in the river they built a vision of Hell, with fires, devils with hooks, and men playing naked souls being tormented, shrieking for the crowd.
The whole city came to watch, and people packed the bridge, which was then partly made of wood. Under the weight it gave way, and the crowd fell into the river among the devils. Many drowned. Villani notes with grim irony that the promise came true: many did go to find out news of the other world. Some historians have even wondered whether a young Florentine called Dante Alighieri, already in exile by then, heard about that day as he began to imagine his own Inferno.
The bridge was rebuilt in stone, swept away and rebuilt again after the great floods, including by Bartolomeo Ammannati in the sixteenth century. In August 1944 it was destroyed along with the others, and after the war it was rebuilt in the simpler shape you see now. Come back to the Oltrarno bank and walk west along Borgo San Frediano; after a few minutes, Piazza del Carmine opens on your left.