The Rocks Bridge (Pietra Bridge) is the oldest bridge in Verona on the Adige river, the only one left from Roman times.
Having survived several floods, it was made to shine during the Second World War by retreating German soldiers, then rebuilt by reconstructing the stones recovered from the river bed by anastylosis.
The bridge is located in a point that since prehistoric times had to present a ford, a crucial meeting point between different communication routes which led to the birth of the city of Verona.
A first wooden bridge was put in place during the construction of the Via Postumia in 148 BC. in the same point where the ford was present, since in that place the river reaches a minimum width of 92 meters and the current arrives with a reduced power due to the wide meander it must make.
Subsequently, the wooden bridge was replaced by the stone one, of which the two left arches, made in square work with prismatic rostrate piles, have survived intact.
After it became a Latin colony in 89 BC, the city, which until then stood on Colle San Pietro, was rebuilt inside the Adige loop according to rigorous Roman orthogonal schemes, and for this reason the bridge, which was prior to the re-foundation of the city, it is not correctly oriented towards the city's decumans, who were traced later on to the sober but monumental bridge. In the imperial age the bridge probably underwent restoration, as evidenced by the presence of the representation of a river divinity on the keystone of the second arch on the left, datable to the second half of the second century.
Rocks Bridge - Virtual Tour 360°
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