Untitled 1
Rirella Editrice - rirella.editrice@gmail.com
Rirella Editrice - rirella.editrice@gmail.com
Responsive Flat Dropdown Menu Demo
HomeBlog 

ROME. CASTEL SANT’ANGELO AND ITS AELIUS BRIDGE

The Mausoleum of Hadrian – today's Castel Sant'Angelo – was built together with the Aelius bridge which was its monumental and scenographic access. It connected it with the Campus Martius and ideally with the Mausoleum of Augustus, the previous imperial dynastic tomb where there was no longer room for other burials.

The Tiber has always been a treacherous river, especially in the very narrow bend where the Mausoleum of Hadrian was built. For this reason, the Aelius bridge was carefully designed to resist the river current, both in periods of low water and during large floods and recurring inundations.

The bridge originally had eight arches: three central ones over 9 meters high and four others of decreasing height, which supported the inclined ramps that went up to the bridge from the Campus Martius on the left bank (east) or from the Ager Vaticanus on the right bank (west).

BORGATTI CSA DISEGNO.png

The pillars that supported the arches were triangular on the upstream side, so as to cut the flow of the current. On the opposite side, towards the valley, they were rounded to prevent the formation of eddies that would have damaged them in the long run.

The pillars rested on very sturdy foundations made of lava fragments, blocks of travertine and peperino tuff; the wooden formworks on which the access ramps to the bridge itself rested were also found.

Over the centuries, the smaller arches were walled up, reducing the flow of the riverbed and transforming the bridge into a real dam; floods became increasingly frequent and disastrous.
For this reason, at the end of the nineteenth century it was decided build new and higher embankments; in doing so the original Roman structures of the bridge were rediscovered, miraculously preserved under the medieval and modern additions.

Instead of restoring and preserving the only Roman bridge that remained intact in the city of Rome, the Ministry of Public Works decided to demolish it to save time and avoid paying penalties for the delay in the work.
In doing so, it was discovered that the natural riverbed had been modified by the Romans, building a series of artificial docks that had a very specific function.

The central part of the riverbed, under the three major arches, was deeper, so that the water always had a constant flow, preventing it from stagnating and becoming a smelly sewer. Then there were two other artificial embankments, higher, under the arches of the ramps. The water reached them only during great floods or real floods.

Archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani tried in vain to prevent the demolition of the only Roman bridge that remained intact in the city. At the end of the works he rightly wrote that if the presumptuous modern engineers had deigned to study the Roman shape of the riverbed, they could have left the original arches intact, reopening them and saving unnecessary expenses.

The Romans had learned the hydraulic art from the Etruscans and were masters of it, as demonstrated by the construction of their grandiose aqueducts.

Thanks to unobtainable archive documents and precious photographs of the demolitions, you can discover in detail with what wisdom the bridge was designed and built in the book by Marina De Franceschini «Castel Sant’Angelo. Mausoleum of Hadrian. Architecture and Light», forthcoming in English language.

Bibliography: «Castel Sant’Angelo. Mausoleo di Adriano. Architettura e Luce» figure on p. 29 e chapter 4: "Descrizione del ponte Elio". 

Related Books
© 2021-24  Rirella Editrice  

6957 Castagnola (Ticino) Svizzera.
Numero di registro fiscale: 5904874
Numero di controllo fiscale: 635.56.659.000
e-Mail: rirella.editrice@gmail.com 

PAY WITH PAYPAL


ennegitech web e social marketing

Sviluppato da Ennegitech su piattaforma nPress 2408