Today, May 22, 2022, the Ponte San Francesco di Paola in Taranto, better known as the "Ponte Girevole", turns 135 years old.
In fact, what at the time was an important and futuristic infrastructure, was inaugurated on Sunday of May 22, 1887, in the presence of the highest city authorities, the then commander of the maritime department, Vice Admiral Ferdinando Acton and the citizenship that occurred en masse .
During the ceremony the bridge was blessed by the archbishop of Taranto, monsignor Pietro Iorio and named after Umberto Cataldo, in honor of the reigning sovereign Umberto I and the patron saint of Taranto, San Cataldo.
It constitutes a link between the ancient village and the new part of the city which was in strong expansion, joining the two banks of a canal, made navigable by the important works begun five years earlier, which connected the Mar Grande and the Mar Piccolo. The Mar Piccolo was about to become the headquarters of the nascent Naval Base and the Maritime Military Arsenal inaugurated only two years later, in 1989.
67 meters long, it was built by the Italian industrial company of Alfredo Cottrau of Castellammare di Stabia and designed by the captain of the military genius and engineer Giuseppe Messina, from that day it will be the symbol of the "City of the Two Seas".
The movement of this first bridge took place thanks to hydraulic turbines powered by a large reservoir located on the adjacent Aragonese Castle, still visible today, with a capacity of about 600 cubic meters of sea water which, in falling, operated the two arms of the openable bridge. in both directions, clockwise and anticlockwise.
The old Umberto Cataldo bridge was replaced 71 years later by a new bridge, which was inaugurated by the President of the Republic Giovanni Gronchi on March 10, 1958, and was named after San Francesco di Paola, protector of the peoples of the sea. The new bridge was designed by the National Society of the Savignano Workshops, which also built the electromechanical parts while the part relating to the metal structures was built by the Tosi Shipyard in Taranto.
Over the decades, the bridge has witnessed memorable transits of naval units, which have marked the history of the Navy and the city. The recent transits of the aircraft carrier are an example of this Cavour at the end of the period of works in Mar Piccolo and Nave Vespucci under full sail returning from the 2020 summer campaign.
