The bridge in front of you looks like a genuine sixteenth-century original, yet most of it is barely seventy years old. Its arches are strikingly flat, following a line that seems to droop rather than curve, a shape engineers are still writing about today.
In August 1944 that shape vanished into the water in a single night, together with the rest of the bridge. After the war Florence committed to a reconstruction so thorough that divers spent years pulling fragments from the , and the same quarry outside the city was reopened to supply the missing stone.
On the corners stand four statues of the seasons. After the rebuild, the figure of Spring was left without her head, which was only dredged up from the riverbed in 1961 and set back in place. From the edge you can still make out the seam.
From the bridge, leads into the centre, and a little further along on your left you will see .
Sources. Story: Comune di Firenze (Ponte Santa Trinita, reconstruction); Treccani (Bartolomeo Ammannati) Photos: Ponte Santa Trinita, Florence, via Wikimedia Commons, photo Jebulon, CC0
