In Piazza San Marco, after the Doge’s Palace, there is a bridge called the ponte della paglia from which one can admire the most famous bridges of the world: the Ponte dei Sospiri. Suspended between two buildings connects the Doge’s Palace in the Hall of the magistrates, the inquisitors of the state of the Serenissima, and the palace of the prisons, it was built on the behest of the Doge Marino Grimani of which it bears the coat of arms. The bridge is completely closed and consists of two separate narrow corridors to avoid any attempt to escape.
The bridge is called the sighs not because it represented therefore the bridge of lovers as many believe, but because the condemned who passed it saw the sky for the last time before being permanently locked in jail. So the “sighs” refer to the resignation and regret of the lost freedom.
In the world it is believed that the sighs refer to those of lovers perhaps for the grace and elegance of the architectural style or perhaps because under the bridge flows a channel that all gondolas take when they have people fallen in love on board and looking at that Beautiful example of Baroque style with the windows rich of delicious laces and the panorama in which you are surrounded by a sigh of loving joys.
The Ponte dei Sospiri (bridge of sighs) can be seen from the ponte della paglia but also from the ponte della canonica.
To visit it you have to book a guided tour of Palazzo Ducale that, in addition to allowing a walk from inside the bridge, offers the opportunity to admire the interiors of the palace and the prisons, with the room of torture and the room of the inquisitors. From the inside of the bridge you can realize the beauty of the city and the lagoon that the convicts observed for the last time.