Ponte d'Augusto

The Bridge of Tiberius (Ponte di Tiberio), historically also the Bridge of Augustus (Ponte d'Augusto) or the Bridge of Saint Julian (Ponte di San Giuliano), is a Roman bridge in Rimini, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. Constructed between 14 and 21 AD under the reigns of Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius, the bridge traverses the Marecchia port canal at the southern end of two Roman roads, the Via Aemilia and the Via Popilia. The bridge was built to showcase the impressiveness of Roman monumental infrastructure, emphasised by its religious-theological decorative artwork, and it is the oldest surviving Roman bridge to be decorated with Greek orders. In 552, the Ponte di Tiberio was intentionally damaged by the Gothic commander Usdrila to prevent the passage of Narses' Byzantine army; it was damaged again during Pandolfo IV's retreat from Rimini in 1528, and in 1743 by Spanish troops in the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1944, German forces retreating from the Battle of Rimini unsuccessfully ordered the bridge's destruction. Among the bridge's notable renovations are those of 1680, which restored the badly damaged northernmost arch using stones from Ponte di San Vito, and the 1970s, during which large amounts of gravel were excavated from the riverbed and the bridge's foundations were submerged in concrete under the direction of Vittoriano Viganò.

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).