Ponte di Rialto, Venice

The Rialto Bridge carries you across Venice’s Grand Canal as a bridge lined with shops. Its present stone form was designed by Antonio da Ponte and completed in 1591, after earlier crossings had been rebuilt over the centuries. The striking choice was a single arch: Antonio da Ponte’s proposal won the competition because it avoided the many-arched designs put forward by other architects.

The structure rests on 12,000 elm piles, spans about 28 metres at its base, rises 8 metres, and measures 48 metres in length and 22 metres in width. Along its ramps, 24 shops are built into the bridge, six on each side. Look at the carved decoration on the southern side: an Annunciation shows the angel, the dove representing the Holy Spirit, and Mary.

On the opposite front, high-relief figures represent Venice’s protectors, Saint Mark and Saint Theodore. As local legend has it, two carved capitals on the nearby Palazzo dei Camerlenghi mock rumours about the bridge’s slow construction. The Rialto has also been Venice’s oldest crossing of the Grand Canal among its four bridges, linking San Marco with San Polo.