2023-12-30 21:01:23
Time.news – A text that combines non-fiction and fiction: it is on the shelves, for Palombi Editori, a volume composed of the essay ‘Once upon a time there was a bridge’, signed by Stefano Lucchini and Giovanna Pimpinella, and by novel ‘The suspended bridge’, by the Milanese noir Andrea Carlo Cappi.
Both works are dedicated to the so-called Ponte del Soldino (nickname due to the fact that crossing it required a toll) a work built at the height of the Church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Rome with the aim of connecting via Giulia with via della Lungara, which however was short: erected in 1863, during the pontificate of Pius IX, it was destroyed in 1941 leaving room for the current Principe Amedeo bridge.
In their essay Lucchini and Pimpinella they bring to life the history of the iron bridge that no longer exists through an accurate historical reconstruction based on period newspapers, photographs, postcards and other sources, creating at the same time an unprecedented portrait of Rome. That suspended connection, born from new techniques and materials, was considered precarious and skepticism spread regarding the safety of his project, just as the leap towards modernity that Pius IX was committed to undertaking was viewed with suspicion. But above all, and more prosaically, the bridge was resented by the Romans as it was the only one out of 35 that required an outlay of money to cross it, and obviously equally opposed by the ferrymen.
The work has a double starting point: on the one hand a painting by Annibale Angelini from 1869, which depicts the bridge inserted into the active life of the city, on the other aA postcard dating back to the 1930s which also portrays him, but in addition to having never been sent or stamped, it features a clipping of the reproduction of a painting by Sofia Chiostri glued together and enigmatic phrases typed.
A mystery to which Andrea Carlo Cappi’s novel is linked, which starts from the killing of an inspector of the Ministry of Public Works, whose body was found on the Soldino Bridge in 1864. Cardinal Giovanni Antonio Mora, responsible for supporting the police in investigations, however, he has many doubts about the real circumstances of what was staged as a robbery, and does not stop investigating in search of a mysterious truth such as the non-place that the bridge still represents today.
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