Ponte Sant'Angelo site features

Ponte Sant'Angelo is a low stone bridge lined with angels, and it is walked rather than driven. It crosses the Tiber in a series of wide arches, and the whole span is paved and level, so the crossing is continuous and unhurried.

The sculpture is the architecture here. Ten angels stand on tall pedestals along both parapets, spaced evenly down the length of the bridge, each one turning or leaning in a different direction and each carrying a different object — the symbols of the Passion. Walking between them is the experience; they are arranged to be passed, not viewed from a single spot.

They are at eye level in a way almost no Baroque sculpture is. The pedestals put the figures just above a walker's head, close enough to read the carving of drapery and hands without optics.

Two older figures stand apart from the ten. St Peter and St Paul mark the city end, larger and plainer than the angels, added before them.

The structure beneath is Roman and reads as such. Broad, shallow arches spring from heavy piers, and from the embankment you can see the difference between the ancient masonry and the later parapet it carries.

The view along it is the reason it is photographed. From the city end the bridge runs straight at Castel Sant'Angelo, so the drum of the castle closes the view with the angels converging on it from both sides.

And at dusk the lamps change it completely. Standing lamps between the statues come on, the angels catch the light from below, and the bridge separates from the dark mass of the castle behind it.

Underfoot it is busy. This is a working pedestrian route between the centre and the Vatican, not a terrace, and the flow across it is constant.

The ten angels

Added in 1668, each bearing a symbol of the Passion. Bernini designed them; his pupils carved them.

St Peter and St Paul

Two statues added before the angels, at the city end.

The Roman arches

The structure Hadrian built in 136, still carrying the crossing.

The view to the castle

The bridge runs straight at Castel Sant'Angelo, the mausoleum it was built to serve.

Where the towers were

The bridge's towers were demolished, leaving the unbroken parapet the angels stand on.

The 1300 crowd scheme

Two opposite routes divided by a row of stalls, imposed for the first Holy Year and recorded by Dante.

The esposizione patibolare

From 1488 to 1534, the bridge and the square before it were where the bodies of the executed were displayed.