Bridge of Size

The Bridge of Size connects the University Gardens to Wizards' Pleasaunce across the Ankh.

Annotation

The enclosed bridge of Ponte dei Sospiri is made of white limestone and has windows with stone bars. It passes over the Rio di Palazzo and connects the old prisons to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace. It was designed by Antoni Contino, whose uncle Antonio da Ponte had designed the Rialto Bridge.

The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge name, given by Lord Byron in the 19th century, comes from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice out the window before being taken down to their cells. In reality, the days of inquisitions and summary executions were over by the time the bridge was built, and the cells under the palace roof were occupied mostly by small-time criminals. A local legend says that lovers will be assured eternal love if they kiss on a gondola at sunset under the bridge. This legend played a key part in the 1979 film A Little Romance.

There is also a Bridge of Sighs in Oxford, England, so-called because it supposedly resembles the bridge in Venice, which it does not to any great degree. It links two quadrangles of Hertford College. There is a similar, not-really-like the Venetian bridge in Cambridge, which in this case does at least cross water.

All bridges over the Ankh (Rimwards to Hubwards)

• Ankh Bridge
• Misbegot Bridge
• Pon's Bridge
• Contract Bridge
• Brass Bridge
• New Bridge
• Maudlin Bridge
• Bridge of Size
• Water Bridge
• Wood Bridge