Ponte Testaccio, Rome

Ponte Testaccio carries you across the Tiber between Largo Giovanni Battista Marzi and Lungotevere Portuense, joining the Testaccio and Portuense districts. Built as a single, sweeping arch, it gives this stretch of river a notably spare profile. Work began in nineteen thirty-eight from a design by Bastianelli and engineer Cesare Pascoletti.

The project was conceived as a route toward Trastevere railway station, following the removal of the former slaughterhouse, and it was originally meant to be called Ponte d’Africa. Instead, it took the name of nearby Monte Testaccio and opened in nineteen forty-eight. At the ends of the bridge, notice the travertine relief panels: there are four, set into the solid mass of the structure. The bridge extends for one hundred and twenty-two metres, a compact twentieth-century crossing with an unusually direct silhouette.