Venice, Veneto · 1933 · Bridge over the Rio Novo
At a glance
Also called the Ponte del Prefetto, this bridge crosses the Rio Novo where the new canal was cut through the gardens of the Palazzo Papadopoli. It looks like a stone bridge and it is not: under the Istrian-stone balustrade the structure is concrete, prestressed with cables — a technique barely out of the laboratory when Miozzi used it here.
Key facts
- Built: 1933, for the opening of the Rio Novo
- Engineer: Eugenio Miozzi, chief engineer to the city of Venice
- Structure: prestressed concrete, with a polycentric arch and cables in Muntz metal
- Balustrade: Istrian stone, with small columns
- Other name: Ponte del Prefetto
- Setting: the Papadopoli gardens, cut through by the new canal
- Coordinates: 45.4378708, 12.3201394
History
By 1930 Piazzale Roma had become the road terminus of Venice, and the way into the city by water — the long curve of the Grand Canal — was a bottleneck. The answer was to cut a new canal straight through the built fabric: the Rio Novo, excavated between 1931 and 1933 under Eugenio Miozzi, the city’s chief engineer, through the Papadopoli garden and a swathe of demolished warehouses, alleys and courtyards, to shorten the run from Piazzale Roma toward Ca’ Foscari and San Marco.
New water meant new crossings. Miozzi built five bridges over the Rio Novo — the Papadopoli, the Cereria, the Sbiaca, Santa Margherita and Ca’ Foscari — and rebuilt the Tre Ponti where the new canal met the old ones. They went up in a single campaign in 1933, and they are among the few pieces of twentieth-century infrastructure that Venice absorbed without argument.
What you see
The bridge is a pale, shallow arch with a balustrade of small stone columns, and from a distance it belongs to the same family as every other bridge in Venice. Up close the surface gives it away: smooth and uniform, without the courses of brick and the stone bands that the older crossings show.
Two carved panels are set into the parapet. One is a lion of Saint Mark, winged, with a paw on the book — the emblem of the Republic, put on a bridge built in 1933. The other, on the far side, is worn almost smooth: a pair of winged figures, too eroded now to name with any confidence.
The bridge today
Practical information
- A public crossing, open at all hours and free.
- Steps on both sides; there is no ramp.
Getting there
The Rio Novo runs from Piazzale Roma toward Ca’ Foscari; all its bridges are within a few minutes’ walk of each other, and of the Piazzale Roma vaporetto stops.
Nearby
- Ponte del Pagan — a 1933 bridge on Venice’s Rio Novo
- Ponte de la Cereria — Miozzi’s Rio Novo, 1933
- Ponte degli Scalzi — Miozzi’s stone arch at the station
Sources
- Conoscere Venezia — Ponte del Prefetto o Papadopoli sul Rio Novo: dating, prestressed-concrete structure, balustrade
- Marascalchi Ingegneria — Ponti Rio Novo: polycentric arch and Muntz-metal prestressing cables
- OpenStreetMap — location
On the Heritage Days walk
Photographed on 26 and 27 September 2026, on the free walk led by Andrea Manzo for the Associazione Beni Culturali Online APS, during the European Heritage Days.
Record researched and written by Stefano Vigolo for Cultural Heritage Online, 2026.
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The bridge from the Papadopoli garden
Photo: Stefano Vigolo
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4000 × 3000 px · JPG · 5.0 MB
prints 34 × 25 cm at 300 dpi · taken 2011
A worn relief on the far parapet
Photo: Stefano Vigolo
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4000 × 3000 px · JPG · 4.7 MB
prints 34 × 25 cm at 300 dpi · taken 2011
The lion of Saint Mark on the parapet
Photo: Stefano Vigolo
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4000 × 3000 px · JPG · 5.1 MB
prints 34 × 25 cm at 300 dpi · taken 2011
The bridge along the Rio Novo
Photo: Stefano Vigolo
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4000 × 3000 px · JPG · 4.6 MB
prints 34 × 25 cm at 300 dpi · taken 2011