Ponte della Paglia

At Ponte della Paglia, the flow of pedestrians usually stops at the parapet: from here, people photograph the Bridge of Sighs, the enclosed passage between the Doge's Palace and the New Prisons. Ponte della Paglia carries people across the mouth of the Rio di Palazzo, from the Molo to the Riva degli Schiavoni. The boundary between the districts of San Marco and Castello runs here.

“Paglia” means “straw” in Italian. The name appeared thanks to merchants who moored beside the former wooden bridge with boats full of straw. At the end of the thirteenth century, the ceremonial waterfront was only beginning to take shape: beside the bridge, a convenient working shore remained, and some of the cargo was needed for the stables of the Doge's Palace. For the sellers, a boat was a shop, a warehouse, and a means of delivery; to lose this place meant having to look for another market.

In twelve eighty-five, Venetian lawmakers recorded a brief ban: no trading in straw at Ponte della Paglia. They feared keeping heaps of dry goods near the palace and city buildings because of fires. The merchants tried to regain their customary berth, but in thirteen oh eight they received another refusal. Later, the sale was moved to San Giorgio Maggiore.

In thirteen sixty, the wooden crossing was replaced with a stone one, and in the nineteenth century it was widened for the growing flow of pedestrians. The boats laden with straw have long been gone. Their trade was removed, the shore was rebuilt, and the bridge became a place from which people photograph another bridge—yet the name still marks the landing that was never returned to the sellers.