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Ponte Cestio

Historic site · Ripa, Italy

The bridge from the Isola Tiberina to Trastevere, built around 46 BC, probably by Lucius Cestius, left by Caesar to govern Rome during the Spanish war. Its span and far abutment lie in Trastevere; the island abutment is Ripa's. It stands as three large arches faced in the original travertine.

History

Repeatedly repaired against the current, it was rebuilt in 365 by Valentinian, Valens and Gratian as one great arch flanked by two smaller. In AD 370 it was called di Graziano, per the inscription in the upstream parapet; later San Bartolomeo, from the island's principal church; later still ferrato, from the iron chains needed to anchor floating mills on barges, a technique that became essential to Rome's flour supply after 537, when Vitiges cut the aqueducts driving the Tiber mills. It was damaged in the French invasion of 1849 but little changed in appearance, and was dismantled and rebuilt when the riverbed was widened for the new embankments.

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