Bridge of Sighs

Where is the Bridge of Sighs?

The Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri) is in Venice  and connects the east side of the Doge’s  Palace with the old state prisons, crossing the Rio di Palazzo. Its name  symbolizes the sadness of the prisoners crossing the bridge.  The Doge’s Palace was begun early in the 14^th Century and took several centuries to complete. The Bridge was not built until the 17^th Century. It became the path by which prisoners crossed to the “pozzi”, the prisons on the other side of the canal.

The Bridge of Sighs is one of nearly 400 bridges over some 150 canals which make up the thoroughfares of Venice, a city built on wooden piles driven into the mud of the lagoon. The city became known as the “Mistress of the Adriatic” from the custom carried out each year by the city’s rulers, from the 12^th to the 18^th Century, of throwing a wedding ring into the Adriatic in token of their claim to dominion over that sea.

Lord Byron’s famous reference to the Bridge of Sighs appear in his poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: “I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; “A palace and a prison on each hand”.