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Hidden gem1st c. BC – 7th c. ADFree

Ponte Nomentano

Pons Lamentanus

bridge · Lazio, Italy

What it is
Ponte Nomentano is a Roman bridge over the river Aniene in the north-east of Rome, where the Via Nomentana crossed it, and its single wide Roman arch now carries a crenellated medieval fortification: a picturesque bridge known above all for its medieval tower.
What you’ll see
The bridge is about 60 m long and 7.35 m wide, dimensions that have stayed practically unchanged since antiquity (en.wikipedia).
Worth the trip?
If you like Roman engineering or the Rome that 18th- and 19th-century painters drew, yes, for an hour.
Getting there & cost
The bridge is on the Via Nomentana in the Monte Sacro district, about 3.9 km beyond the Porta Nomentana in the Aurelian Walls (en.wikipedia).Free · No ticket · checked 23 October 2026Hours, tickets and parking
A black-and-white view from the riverbank through bare winter branches. A single wide arch spans the water low down, and on top of it stands a crenellated, castle-like block with an arched gateway in its face.
The bridge from the riverbank, the wide arch over the Aniene below the medieval fortification. · Photo: lucaleica · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The side of the bridge above a swollen brown river. Two people stand at a railing on the walkway, and behind them rise crenellated brick walls and a square tower with a large arched opening, with ivy climbing the stonework below.
The fortified bridge over the Aniene. · Photo: Albarubescens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Looking up at a brick arch in sunlight, with two carved pale stone brackets projecting from the rough wall above it.
Brickwork on one of the bridge's arches. · Photo: Anthony Majanlahti · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

What is there today

The bridge is about 60 m long and 7.35 m wide, dimensions that have stayed practically unchanged since antiquity (en.wikipedia). The Roman part is the great arch over the river, about 15 m across, faced with travertine blocks; the original bridge had two such arches, and only the one on the Monte Sacro side survives (the Sovrintendenza). Sitting on top of it is the castle-like block with battlements, built in the works of Pope Nicholas V in the mid-15th century, whose papal coat of arms is still on the downstream entrance front; one of the crenellated guard towers that protected the gates also survives (the Sovrintendenza). Small side arches carry the approach ramps on each bank; published dates for them differ, from the 8th century (the Sovrintendenza) to the reign of Innocent X in the 17th (en.wikipedia). In September 2026 the wooden walkway between the two towers on top of the bridge was restored (Turismo Roma).

The roadway runs through the fortification as a footpath, and the bridge stands in the Valle dell’Aniene park along the river (de.wikipedia). The interior rooms are not regularly open; it.wikipedia says they are opened to the public only occasionally.

About 200 m away on the Via Nomentana stands the so-called Mausoleum of Menenius Agrippa, a round Roman tomb of the 1st–2nd century AD on a rectangular base, built of mortar and yellow tuff. Its burial chamber has four niches under a vault made with fragments of amphorae, but the entrance was later closed, so the tomb is seen from outside. The name is a later attribution: Menenius Agrippa lived some six centuries before it was built, and the tomb was linked with him because it stands near the hill of Monte Sacro (it.wikipedia).

Is it worth the trip?

If you like Roman engineering or the Rome that 18th- and 19th-century painters drew, yes, for an hour. It is one of the few pedestrian bridges in Rome (it.wikipedia), so you can walk over a Roman arch and through the medieval defences built on it, and it costs nothing. Be clear about what is Roman, though: one arch and some courses of masonry, under a building that is mostly medieval and later (en.wikipedia). It lies about 6 km from the city centre (OpenStreetMap), so it suits a second or third visit to Rome better than a first. Santa Costanza and Sant’Agnese fuori le mura are on the same road, about 1.7 km closer to the centre.

Getting there

The bridge is on the Via Nomentana in the Monte Sacro district, about 3.9 km beyond the Porta Nomentana in the Aurelian Walls (en.wikipedia). Public transport stops are mapped about 140 m away (Monte Sacro) and 170 m away (Nomentana/Val d’Ossola), and there are a few free street-side parking spaces about 200 m from the bridge (OpenStreetMap).

There is no ticket and no published timetable: the Sovrintendenza Capitolina, the City of Rome’s heritage department, lists the bridge simply as visible from the outside (read 23 October 2026).

Visiting details

Opening hours
The operator lists it as a monument visible from the outside and publishes no opening hours. The roadway through it is a pedestrian path; the rooms inside are not regularly open.
Tickets
No ticket. The operator publishes no charge, and the bridge carries a public footpath.
Parking
Free street-side parking about 200 m from the bridge, only a few spaces (OSM way/1557839905 and way/1557839906).

Before you go

  • The interior of the towers is not open on a normal visit; the operator's page says only that the bridge is visible from the outside.

Hours and prices checked 23 October 2026 on the operator's own site. Confirm before travelling.

History

The bridge was built where the Via Nomentana crossed the Aniene at the foot of Monte Sacro, a crossing used by migrating herds since ancient times; its materials and building technique date the original bridge to the late 2nd or early 1st century BC (the Sovrintendenza). Its arch faces are of travertine blocks, the underside of the arch of Gabii stone (pietra gabina), and the piers were of red tuff blocks, a few of which survive (the Sovrintendenza).

The historian Procopius records that the Ostrogoths under Totila destroyed it around 547 during the Gothic War and that the general Narses had it rebuilt in 552, though the surviving late-Republican arch suggests it may have been only partly damaged (en.wikipedia). The Sovrintendenza attributes the brick facing on the downstream side to that 6th-century repair.

Tradition holds that Pope Leo III met Charlemagne on the bridge in 800 (Turismo Roma). The lower part of the tower is attributed, by an unproven tradition, to Pope Adrian I (772–795); the castle structure belongs to Nicholas V (1447–1455), with further repairs in 1461, 1470 and 1474 (en.wikipedia). In 1849 French troops cut a 7 m gap in the bridge to check Garibaldi’s advance on Rome, and it was later repaired (en.wikipedia, it.wikipedia). It was the obligatory road between Rome and the districts to the north until the nearby Ponte Tazio was built in 1924; fears for the structure closed it to cars in 1997, and it was restored in 2002 (it.wikipedia).

More photographs

A cobbled path leading under trees to the gateway of the bridge, a tall stone block with a pitched roof and a round-headed arch, through which the far end of the passage is visible.
The pedestrian approach to the bridge. · Photo: Lalupa · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Inside the bridge, a paved passage runs between masonry walls under a wooden balcony to a second round arch, with trees and a building beyond.
The passage through the fortification. · Photo: Lalupa · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
A squat, roughly round mass of weathered concrete and tuff, overgrown on top, standing beside a street among trees.
The so-called Mausoleum of Menenius Agrippa, a short walk from the bridge on the Via Nomentana. · Photo: Saverio.G · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

  • A sunken rectangular bed of gravel with a metal grating at its centre, edged by low stone kerbs and a grey paved floor, under a modern shelter roof on slender posts, with rope barriers keeping visitors back.

    Photo: MumblerJamie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Commons

    8 km · villa · Lazio

    Villa of Livia

    The operator describes the private wing with the bedrooms of Livia and the emperor, an atrium and a small inner garden, and the large reception rooms that open onto a peristyle; the rooms once had painted walls and floors of mosaic and cut marble (Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma).

  • A tall, square building of brick and rubble with small windows and a tiled roof; the outline of a great round-headed arch, filled in with masonry, shows in the middle of the wall, and blocks of pale stone lie on the grass in front.

    Photo: MM · Public domain · Commons

    14 km · arch · Lazio

    Arch of Malborghetto

    At first sight you see an austere farmhouse rather than an arch (it.wikipedia).

  • A tall free-standing wall of squared, lichen-spotted stone blocks, ragged along its top edge, rising from a low stepped base in a mown field, with trees and distant hills behind.

    Photo: Carlomorino · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commons

    16 km · city · Lazio

    Gabii

    The park the state holds covers about 70 hectares on the southern rim of a volcanic crater whose lake was drained in the 19th century (the operator; en.wikipedia).

Straight-line distances.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from the records below, each used under the licence noted.

SourceLicence
Pleiades 50864838CC BY
Wikidata Q1351222CC0
Vici.org 12027CC BY-SA (text), CC0 (metadata)
OpenStreetMap way/231313783ODbL
Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali — Ponte Nomentano (the operator)licence not recorded
Turismo Roma (City of Rome) — Ponte Nomentanolicence not recorded
Wikipedia (en) — Ponte NomentanoCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (it) — Ponte NomentanoCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (de) — Ponte NomentanoCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (fr) — Pont NomentanoCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (it) — Mausoleo di Menenio AgrippaCC BY-SA 4.0