Before the construction of the Bailey bridge known as Ponte Sarajevo, the only bridge over the river Piave in Belluno was the single-span Vittoria Bridge, at the entrance to Borgo Piave, built between 1923 and 1926. It was the work of the design engineer Eugenio Miozzi, who was keen that it should be attractive as well as technically sound, so much so that he entrusted the architect Riccardo Alfarè with the decorative and architectural elements, created using a marteline, and Prof. De Lotto with creating the statues of the Lions of St. Mark. The decorative panels on the shoulders of the bridge feature the most significant words of the patriotic Canzone del Piave, or Song of the Piave. This important feat of engineering, which links Belluno with the Castionese area, is the last of a series of bridges over the Piave with more than one arch, built in an area of a few hundred metres and destroyed as a result of either wartime battles or natural disasters. In 1568 Antonio Da Ponte, who designed the Rialto Bridge in Venice, created one that was destroyed when the river flooded scarcely a decade later; the reconstruction of this bridge even attracted the attention of Andrea Palladio, although the project was actually entrusted in 1580 to Domenico Barcelloni Corte of Belluno. At the end of the downward slope that leads into Borgo Piave, we can see what remains of the Austrian bridge completed on 13 December 1841 by the design engineer Antonio Zilli, destroyed by a flood and a landslide in October 1882 and later re-used by the Military Engineering Corps for a bridge-wood walkway. A little further upstream from the present-day Vittoria Bridge was an iron bridge built by the town council in December 1884 and destroyed on 17 November 1917 by retreating Italian troops.

The Vittoria bridge can be reached by taking the road that runs along the left of the Piave, coming either from the A27 or coming up the Val Belluna along the SP1 road from the municipalities on the left bank of the river.
If you are coming to Belluno from the Feltrino area, along the SS50, take Via Prade at Marisiga, drive on until the Via Feltre roundabout and go down towards the right along Viale dei Dendrofori; after the Lambioi car park, at the roundabout, cross the Piave over the bridge, and at the next roundabout, head for Belluno right above the Vittoria Bridge.

ACCESSIBLE: yes
MUNICIPALITY: Belluno
PLACE: Borgo Piave – bridge over the Piave
GEOGRAPHICAL COORDINATES: X 1748655 – Y 5114035
PROVINCE: Belluno

FILE COMPILED BY: Guadagnin

The Cavarzano neighbourhood is linked to the Old Town of Belluno by the railway bridge (58 AC) over the Ardo, alongside which runs a walking/cycling path. The now six-span viaduct over the neighbourhood of San Francesco, was built for the first time in stone in 1911, when the Belluno – Longarone railway stretch was built, and its history is closely linked to the wartime events as a result of which it was destroyed and rebuilt on several occasions.

L. Puppi, Un anno con Palladio tra Feltre e Belluno, Vicenza, 2009
Association of Architects of the Province of Belluno, Alfaré. Opere di Riccardo Alfaré 1882-1969, Belluno, 1990
G. De Bortoli, A. Moro, F Vizzutti, Belluno, storia, architettura, arte, Belluno, 1984
A. Fontana, F. Vizzutti, Borgo Piave 1, Belluno, 1980
A. Da Borso, Il Ponte sul Piave a Belluno in “Historical Archives”, XVI, 1944
Ing. Eugenio Miozzi, Il nuovo ponte sulla Piave a Belluno, Estratto degli annali dei lavori pubblici – già Giornale del Genio Civile – Anno 1927 – Fascicolo VII°, Roma 1927