The Ponte dei Sospiri – the Bridge of Sighs – was built in the 16th Century and is one of the most recognisable sights in Venice. Antonio Contino’s white limestone enclosed bridge with its windows and stone bars arcs over the Rio di Palazzo connecting the old prisons to the courts in the Doge’s Palace. It was Lord Byron in the 19th Century who conceived the name Bridge of Sighs – the suggestion being that the view from the bridge window was the last sight of Venice the convicts saw before their imprisonment.
