A Room with a View

It was a pleasantly warm day in Florence, Italy.

Those visitors to the city, like myself, from the colder climates of northern europe were dressed in short sleeved shirts and shorts. Amongst the aromatic odours from the confectioners, bakers, restaurants and trattoria's was the familiar and distinctive fragrance of sun tan lotion on pale freckly skin , a bit premature I thought for what was still only the third week in May.

The local population in contrast hustled through the straggling crocodiles of organised tours being distinguishable by their sporting of full winter coats and ski jackets in the relatively chilly conditions in an eminently fashionable style that only Italians can.

Progress on the flagstone and marble pavements of the narrow streets of three and more storey civic and residential buildings alternated between heat and shade. It was entirely possible to traverse the historic city either in full dazzling sunlight or perpetual cool shadows.

Care had to be taken in negotiating the hordes of tourists who were either wired up to a running commentary from their flag bearing guide at the head of the column or adopting a stop-start policy after catching sight of another ancient statue, church, facade or just a tempting menu displayed on a lecturn at a pavement cafe.

In addition to the groups were the freelancers consisting of individuals or hand-holding couples. They were somewhat obvious in their carrying of their copies of Baedeckers Guide to Florence as though on their own grand tour of the Tuscan region, a customary pursuit for many over the generations. Some clutched  worn paperback editions of Room with a View and Dan Brown's Inferno, the latter in imagining themselves as the main character Robert Langdon on a typically complicated and contrived trail of mystery, mayhem and controversy.

There is no doubting the pedigree of the city as a cradle of creativity in the arts, humanities and science. In the cool, pillared vaults of Santa Croce I wandered about a bit punch drunk with the monuments to Gallileo, Michelangelo, Dante, Da Vinci and Machiavelli all being captured within the same camera phone shot. Being too tight to purchase a definitive guide to the rest of the hallowed sons and daughters of Florence I remained ignorant of the contributions of many others to society, culture and philosophy.

By mid afternoon I was thinking that I had not yet, amongst the great architectural wonders, seen anything like a stone closed spandrel segmental arch bridge. My wife, on her second visit to Florence, sensed in a way that only 25 years of marriage can that I was on the trail of a stone closed spandrel segmental arch bridge (scssab) and excitedly led me in a remedial but somehow romantic hand held way through further crowds towards the river, the Arno.

Emerging just ahead of me from a shady street after breaking free of my sticky right palm she stood back and gestured at some object of which she obviously had prior knowledge.

I had to just stand and stare.

It was indeed a truly magnificent example of that elusive, and now abbreviated "scssab".
The Ponte Vecchio.

I had of course seen photographs of the thing, not being a complete cultural philistine, but nothing in one dimension could have prepared me for the true scale and splendour of its graceful span over the river and the retained Medieval charm of the shops and kiosks lining the road.

The history bit.....built in 1345 after previous structures had been washed away in the frequently devastating power of the watercourse and after only just survived a similar fate in the 1966 inundation of the old city, it is indeed a unique sight.

Legends and fables abound.

The term bankruptcy is often associated with the practice of breaking up the tables of traders on the bridge by the authorities if the individual was unable to pay his debts.

The bridge was spared, undamaged with the retreat of the German army in 1944, this rumoured to be on the express orders of Hitler, perhaps like me a fan of a stone closed spandrel segmental arch. Other less notable and functional crossing points were destroyed.

 The retail identity of the bridge is firmly in the jewellery sector with small display frontages of high priced items and somewhat spoiled in my mind by a large, gawdy Rolex backlit sign.

I have a built in reflex to usher my wife away from high end goods emporiums but this was proving difficult given the mesmeric effect that the shop windows were having on her. We lingered and dwelled outside a few establishments, with me pretending to have some sophistication and secret affluence in peering dutifully over my wife's shoulder.

We had talked about purchasing a memento from Florence to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. There was some difference in opinion as to what form it would take. I favoured, perhaps, more of a city scene snow-globe type acquisition. It would be a case of compromise obviously taking into account Allison's own expectations of the item.

Something shiny away from the jewellery shops caught my attention and I stood and gawped at the collection of padlocks secured to the superstructure of the Ponte Vecchio.

Apparently it is a tradition, albeit of the modern era, for lovers to write their names or initials on a padlock, fasten it to the bridge and then throw the key into the Arno. Although a waste of a good stout lock it is deemed symbolic of the eternal bond as lovers.

Over the years thousands upon thousands of couples have patronised this practice ultimately to the fiscal benefit of the owner of, surprise, surprise, the only padlock shop trading on the bridge.

The custom became so popular amongst dewy eyed lovers that the city authorities decreed that the bridge was under threat of damage, in effect, from this form of romantic nostalgia.

I have ultimate confidence in a stone closed spandrel segmental arch to carry all manner of imposed loadings including a few extra tons of tempered and forged steel but the main injury to the historic bridge was from the physical attachment of the hasps to railings and the statue of a certain civic dignatory, a Mr Cellini.

I mused, on that hot afternoon about the sacrifices and inevitable price to be paid for love and all things symbolic about love. I concluded that it was 160 Euro's plus the cost of a confiscated padlock, the current sanction imposed by the Florentine City Fathers on those still intent on doing soppy and impetuous things involving vandalism of a public monument.

Now, where did I recall seeing those fabulous snow globes?