Fiume Arno in Florence from the Lungarno delle Grazie - Ponte alle Grazie - Pescaia di San Niccolò and Ponte San Niccolò

After leaving the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and heading back towards the hotel along the Fiume Arno.

These views from the Lungarno delle Grazie .

The view from the Ponte alle Grazie of the Pescaia di San Niccolò and Ponte San Niccolò.

Ponte alle Grazie is a bridge, reconstructed after 1945, over the Arno River in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.

The original bridge was called Ponte di Rubaconte after the name of the podestà Rubaconte da Mandello who had commissioned construction in 1227, making it older than the Ponte Vecchio. It was rebuilt in 1345 with nine arches, making it the longest in Florence. Giorgio Vasari attributed the design to an architect by the name of Lapo Tedesco, the architect of the Bargello.

In 1346, two of the arches in the Oltrarno neighborhood were filled up to extend the bank, leaving the seven arch structure seen in a 17th-century print on this page. This landfill widened the street of Piazza dei Mozzi, which leads to the Palazzo Mozzi.

On the city side was a small oratory with an icon of the Madonna Alle Grazie, which also gave the bridge its name. Structures were erected at each of the pylons, and remained there till a widening of the road, to make way for railway track. These structures initially were either chapels, once dedicated to Saints Catherine of Alexandria, Barbara, and Lawrence; or erected as huts for female hermits or Romite. These women, wishing to avoid the scandals of some of the nunneries in the city, were said to have immured themselves here, receiving their food from passersby through small slots. These hermitages were ultimately cleared and the remaining women moved to a convent near Santa Croce, renamed the Murate, or Immured. The houses became dwellings until cleared in the 1870s.

In August 1944, the bridge was destroyed by the retreating Germans as they withdrew before the advancing Allied forces in World War II. Following the end of the War, a competition was held to create a new design for a replacement bridge. The winning design, the work of a group formed of architects including Giovanni Michelucci, Edoardo Said, Edoardo Detti, Riccardo Gizdolich and Danilo Know and an engineer, Piero Melucci, feature four slender piers with thin arches between them. The new bridge was completed in 1953. While the new design is harmonious with the surrounding city, its modern design and construction materials do not mirror the shape of the prior bridge.

Pescaia di San Niccolò - looks like a weir or a dam on the river. Probably to prevent another flood like in 1966!

Since ancient times and until the end of the 14th century, the Arno represented for Florence one of the major resources to produce energy for the hydraulic factories located along its course. The river was also used as a river and as a natural fish supply. The Art of Wool possessed on the banks of the river many facilities necessary for the various cycles of wool and fabric processing, such as fulling mills. The so-called "peaches" or "steccaie" made of wood or vegetable material contributed to the canalisation work. Two were the main Florentine fisheries: the fishing of San Niccolò, located in the area of the homonymous port, and that of Santa Rosa in the area of the Cascine Park. The fishery of San Niccolò supplied water to the mills located within the walls, destined in part to the needs of the population.

View towards the Ponte San Niccolo

The bridge of San Niccolò is the bridge over the Arno furthest from the center of Florence , the third highest upstream of the Municipality of Florence, after those from Verrazzano and Varlungo.

It was built between 1836 and 1837 near the homonymous fishing farm San Niccolò that supplied water to the mills located within the walls.

Originally it was a suspension bridge, held up by metal ropes stretched between the bank and the bank of the Arno. The original name was Ponte San Ferdinando in honor of Grand Duke Ferdinando III of Tuscany . The construction work was entrusted to a French company of the brothers Marc and Jules Séguin, famous engineers skilled in the design of metal bridges, who had also been in charge of the construction of the San Leopoldo bridge , now called Ponte alla Vittoria. A few years later it was overwhelmed by the 1844 flood, it was rebuilt in 1853 and still modified in 1890, always maintaining a metal structure, for this reason it was popularly called the Iron Bridge.

It changed its name after the end of the Grand Duchy and was named after San Niccolò in honor of the adjacent district on the southern bank of the Arno.

Like all other Florentine bridges except Ponte Vecchio , it was mined and destroyed by the retreating Germans in 1944 and rebuilt in the following years with the current reinforced concrete structure, with a single arch (unlike all previous structures that they had been developed with three arches, with the exception of the first which was suspended).

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Taken in: Italia / Toscana / Firenze / Ricorboli (show map)

Taken on: June 26, 2018

Tags:

Florence

Firenze

Italia

Tuscany

Toscana

birthplace of the Renaissance

the Athens of the Middle Ages

UNESCO

World Heritage Site

UNESCO World Heritage Site

historic centre of Florence

Arno

Arno River

Fiume Arno

Lungarno delle Grazie

bridge

Ponte alle Grazie

Ponte di Rubaconte

Giorgio Vasari

Lungarno Generale Diaz

weir

Lungarno della Zecca Vecchia

Pescaia di San Niccolò

dam

Ponte San Niccolò

Ponte S. Niccolò

bridge of San Niccolò

Ponte San Ferdinando

Grand Duke Ferdinando III of Tuscany

Marc and Jules Séguin

Ponte A San Niccolò

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Sets appears in: • River Arno, Florence • Florence

Groups appears in: • Rivers • Bridges of the World more » • Rivers and Streams « less

Camera: Panasonic DMC-FZ72, f/5.5, 1/400 sec, 37.8mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Panasonic DMC-FZ72
Aperture:	f/5.5
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/400)
Focal Length:	37.8mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	+0.33 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Ver.1.0
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