The Accademia bridge is the southernmost of the four bridges in Venice that cross the Grand Canal. It connects San Vidal to the former Church of Santa Maria della Carità.
In the eighteen years of the last Austrian domination (1848-1866) the
most important urban planning innovation in Venice was accomplished. The
Rialto Bridge had been the only pedestrian crossing point on the Grand
Canal for three hundred years: in those years the need was felt for two
further crossings, one at the new railway station, the other towards the
south, at the opposite end of the canal.
In 1838 the architect
Giuseppe Salvadori put forward various proposals, one of which envisaged
a tunnel under the canal, in order not to create problems for the
passage of tree-lined boats. After an interruption due to the
insurrections of 1848 against the Austrian government, in 1852 the
English engineer Alfred Neville, who had already directed the
construction of 37 iron suspension bridges in Europe, proposed a bridge
with a single horizontal girder of 50 m of light.
This bridge,
called Ponte della Carità, was immediately built and opened to the
public, toll, on November 20, 1854. The name derives from the nearby
complex of the Charity which includes the Convent, the Church of Santa
Maria della Carità and the Scuola Grande della Carità. These buildings,
deconsecrated and in disuse, later became the headquarters of the
Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and currently house the Gallerie
dell'Accademia.
Neville himself built a similar structure in
front of the railway station. These structures were not well accepted by
the Venetians, because the markedly "industrial" style clashed in the
context of the city's architecture; their height of only 4 meters also
created difficulties for the passage of boats. In any case, foot traffic
fell steadily into their groove.
After a few years, the bridge
began to present static problems, due to the weakness of some points of
the structure, and in the Fascist period it now showed worrying signs of
deterioration and corrosion. While waiting for the construction of a new
stone bridge, for which a national competition had been announced and
the design by Duilio Torres (architect) and Ottorino Bisazza (engineer)
had won a temporary wooden bridge designed by Eugenio Miozzi
(1889-1979), which was opened to the public on February 15, 1933. At the
time of its inauguration, it was the largest wooden arch bridge in all
of Europe.
However, the wood of the bridge requires continuous
and very expensive maintenance. Between 1984 and 1986 the bridge was
rebuilt to a design by Giulio Ballio, Giuseppe Creazza, Luciano Jogna
and Giancarlo Turrini. The new structure was made of steel, relegating
the wood to the role of cladding, with the exception of some support
elements of the staircase and deck. However, the timber used has shown
signs of rapid deterioration over the years and on various occasions the
possibility of replacing it has been considered, building the definitive
bridge on the winning project by Torres and Bisazza.
The
restoration work (2017-18)
In 2009 the Municipality of Venice
published a call for tenders for the assignment of sponsorship, through
which to finance the restoration project of the bridge, maintaining the
load-bearing metal structure and remaking the wooden part with the same
material.
The choice of a reconstruction was dictated by the
excessive ordinary and extraordinary maintenance costs that the wooden
structure requires.
The tender for the construction of the work
was announced only in 2016 and the works designed by Eng. Antonio
Pantuso, with the advice of prof. Franco Laner for the wooden parts,
which began in 2017 and ended with the inauguration of the restored work
on August 28, 2018.