Venetians call it the bridge of Santa Chiara, after a convent that is no longer there. Its real name remembers the same thing, and it was built in 1933 because the city had just cut a new canal under it.
At a glance
A painted iron footbridge crossing the Rio Novo between the Fondamenta Santa Chiara and the Fondamenta de la Croce, at the western edge of the city near Piazzale Roma. It went up in 1933, as part of the works that opened the Rio Novo, and it was built first in timber before being rebuilt in iron and stone. The formal name is Ponte del Monastero; most people call it the Ponte di Santa Chiara, after the fondamenta and the monastic foundation that gave the place its name.
Key facts
- Built: 1933, with the opening of the Rio Novo
- Names: Ponte del Monastero, commonly called Ponte di Santa Chiara
- Crosses: the Rio Novo, from Fondamenta Santa Chiara to Fondamenta de la Croce
- Structure: first built in timber, then rebuilt in iron and stone, with iron bands
- Where the name comes from: the nearby foundation of the Santa Chiara convent
- GPS: 45.43861, 12.31986 · Open in Google Maps
History
The Rio Novo is not old. It was cut through the built city in the 1930s, and the bridges over it are the same age as the cut: this one, and the Ponte Papadopoli a little further along. A canal driven through ground that is already built on leaves severed streets behind it, and every one of them needs a crossing.
This bridge was thrown up in timber first, which is the usual sequence when a work has to open before it is finished, and then rebuilt in iron on stone abutments. The name it carries on the map is the older of its two names: the monastery of Santa Chiara stood on this bank, and although the convent itself has long since been cut away and built over, the fondamenta, the bridge and the popular name all still point at it.
What you see
A single shallow arch, painted a green that has gone slightly blue with age, with a lattice parapet and iron stairs at both ends. It is a working bridge and looks it: no stone balustrade, no Istrian coping, nothing of the Venetian bridge of the postcards. From the middle of it you see the Ponte della Costituzione off to the left, built seventy-five years later over the same water, and the two of them together make a short lesson in what each of their centuries thought a bridge ought to look like.
Nearby
- Santa Chiara: the Convent Venice Cut Away — thirty metres off, the foundation the bridge is named after
- The Ponte della Costituzione — forty metres downstream, the fourth bridge over the Grand Canal
- Ponte Papadopoli — Miozzi’s prestressed bridge of 1933, on the same new canal
Sources
- Conoscere Venezia, Ponte del Monastero (o di Santa Chiara) sul Rio Novo — conoscerevenezia.it: the 1933 date, the two names, the first timber structure and the rebuilding in iron and stone, the banks it joins, and the origin of the name
Find it on the map
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