ORAL+PRESENTATION


 * Ponte Sant'Angelo - ”Bridge of Angels” **

Ponte Sant'Angelo, once the Aelian Bridge or Pons Aelius, meaning the Bridge of Hadrian, is a Roman bridge in Rome, Italy, completed in 134 AD by Roman Emperor Hadrian, to span the Tiber, from the city center to his newly constructed mausoleum, now the towering Castel Sant'Angelo. It is one of ten bridges you most famous in Europe. Still up today is preserved and you can visit and walk on it because it is reserved for pedestrians.

The bridge is faced with travertine marble, stone and peperino (is an Italian name applied to a brown or grey volcanic tuff, containing fragments of basalt and limestone, with disseminated crystals of augite, mica, etc.).

The bridge is located near the Vatican walls and from it you can see stunning views of the Castle of Sant Angelo and the Tiber River (is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing 406 kilometres through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The river has achieved lasting fame as the main watercourse of the city of Rome, founded on its eastern banks. In his course there are numerous bridges some of them of great historical and artistic value).

This bridge has five spans. Is an arch bridge, fixed bridge whose deck is supported by an arch. This static scheme allows you to transfer part of its weight and its load in horizontal forces, opposed by foot from both sides.

In times past, pilgrims used this bridge to reach St Peter's Basilica, hence it was known also with the name of "bridge of Saint Peter" (pons Sancti Petri). In the seventh century, under Pope Gregory I, both the castle and the bridge took on the name Sant'Angelo, explained by a legend that an angel appeared on the roof of the castle to announce the end of the plague. During the 1450 jubilee, balustrades of the bridge yielded, due to the great crowds of the pilgrims, and many drowned in the river. In response, some houses at the head of the bridge as well as a Roman triumphal arch were pulled down in order to widen the route for pilgrims.

For centuries after the 16th century, the bridge was used to expose the bodies of the executed. In 1535, Pope Clement VII allocated the toll income of the bridge to erecting the statues of the apostles saint Peter and Saint Paul to which subsequently the four evangelists and the patriarchs were added to other representing statues Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses. In 1669 Pope Clement IX commissioned replacements for the aging stucco angels by Raffaello da Montelupo, commissioned by Paul III. Bernini's program, one of his last large projects, called for ten angels holding instruments of the Passion: he personally only finished the two originals of the Angels with the Superscription "I.N.R.I." and with the Crown of Thorns, but these were kept by Clement IX for his own pleasure.

http://youtu.be/snBDmqXGCVE