Ponte degli Alpini
Last updated on September 7, 2026Overview
The Ponte degli Alpini is a covered wooden bridge over the Brenta, built to Andrea Palladio's design of 1569 on a crossing documented since 1209. It has been destroyed and rebuilt to the same drawings again and again -- most recently after 1945, by the Alpini regiments whose name it carries.
Quick Facts
- Type: Bridge, Historic Place
- Local name: Ponte degli Alpini (vedi la pagina italiana)
- Built: Designed 1569; rebuilt 1948
- Designed by: Andrea Palladio
- Designed to be rebuilt: A timber deck flexes where masonry would shatter under the Brenta's floods -- and when it does go, the same drawings and joints put it back.
- Rebuilt by the Alpini: Blown up by retreating forces in 1945 and rebuilt in 1948 by Italy's mountain infantry, whose name it now carries. A structural restoration finished in 2022.
Visit Responsibly
This is a timber structure carrying far more foot traffic than it was designed for, freshly out of a restoration completed in 2022. Crowding onto it for photographs at peak times is exactly the load it does not need -- going early costs nothing and helps.
It is also a working crossing used by residents daily, not a viewing platform. Standing still in the middle of a narrow deck at busy times is the one genuinely inconsiderate thing a visitor can do here.
Plan Your Visit
Free, open and permanently accessible -- it is a working public bridge, not a monument with hours. Crossing takes two minutes; most people take considerably longer.
Five minutes' walk downhill from Bassano's central squares, ten from the station. Nardini's bar and the Alpini museum are both at the western end.