Ponte Alle Grazie

Lonely Planet review

In 1237, Giovanni Villani tells us, Messer Rubaconte da Mandella, a Milanese then serving as external martial (podestà) in Florence, had this bridge built. It was swept away in 1333 and on its replacement were raised chapels, one of them dubbed Madonna alle Grazie (Our Lady of the Graces), from which the bridge then took its name.

Eventually the chapel, at one end of the bridge, was expanded into a small convent whose Benedictine nuns lived in isolation. Their food was passed to them through a small window and so the nuns became known as Le Murate (The Walled-in Ones). In 1424 they left for larger premises on Via dell'Agnolo, which took on their name, Le Murate. Much later that building was turned into a women's prison and in 2004 was completely renovated to create smallish rent-assisted apartments for low-income earners. The bridge, in the meantime, had filled up with chapels, shops and other buildings much in the manner of the Ponte Vecchio. These were demolished in 1876 to allow street-widening across it. The Germans blew up the bridge in 1944, and the present version was constructed in 1957.