Ponte Sanguinario

Is it worth the trip?

As a short stop on a visit to Spoleto, yes, if the gate is open: it is unusual to stand under the arches of a Roman road bridge that the street has risen over. The amphitheatre remains are 150–250 m away (it.wikipedia; OpenStreetMap), and the theatre, the arch and the Casa Romana are in the upper town, on the Spoletium – Spoleto page. On its own it is not worth a journey, and it is not a bridge you can see from outside: the whole thing is below the pavement.

The catch is getting in. No operator publishes opening hours or a price. The Comune di Spoleto says that it can be visited, and its events page listed a free visit by booking in March 2026, but the stair ends at a gate, and the photographs of 2014 show it shut. Ask at the tourist office before planning around it. A €2.5 million restoration funded by the Region of Umbria is meant to add a new entrance, a visitor route and lighting and to restore the bridge, its third arch included, with the works due to finish by December 2030 (La Nazione, February 2025).

Getting there

The stairwell is in the eastern part of Piazza della Vittoria, a few metres from the Porta Leonina, which stands where the gate of San Gregorio used to be, and the basilica of San Gregorio Maggiore (it.wikipedia). An information board stands about 50 m away, and bus stops about 60 m away (OpenStreetMap). Drivers will find a paid car park about 35 m from the bridge and two more within 100 m (OpenStreetMap). The arch at the old forum, in the upper town, is about 770 m away in a straight line.

History

The date is not settled. Pleiades describes it as a late Republican to early imperial bridge, and the Comune dates it to the 1st century BC, probably before Augustus; it.wikipedia suggests it may belong to Augustus’s restoration of the neglected bridges of the Via Flaminia around 27 BC. It took the Flaminia over the Tessino, then a true river, and two roads left the town across it: a branch of the Flaminia and the old Via Pedemontana to Foligno (it.wikipedia). It was still in use in the Middle Ages (the Comune); Spoleto’s statutes of 1296 call it the ponte San Gregorio.

The river slowly moved its bed northwards; at the end of the 13th century it had to be led back under the bridge, and after that, left alone, it shifted again, until floods buried the bridge in silt and raised the ground around it (it.wikipedia). It came to light again in 1816–17, while the foundations of a new bridge over the Tessino were being dug nearby; published accounts give both years (it.wikipedia; the Comune). It was buried again within a few years, and around 1840 the painter Casimiro Pentozzi paid for one arch to be uncovered and drawn. A basement to protect it was built from 1848 and was soon flooded by seeping water (the Comune). In 1896, after the ground near the bridge subsided, the town closed its arches with a brick wall, although a local archaeologist tried to raise the money to avoid it, and a further campaign of work was completed in 1906 (it.wikipedia; the Comune).

The name “bloody bridge” is thought to be later than the bridge. Legend ties it to the executions of Christian martyrs, whose heads were said to have been thrown into the stream below; tradition has Spoleto’s patron saint, Pontianus, beheaded here. Other explanations derive it from the Porta Sandapilaria of the nearby amphitheatre or from the Sanguineto, a stream that joins the Tessino (it.wikipedia).