https://cgmr.carleton.edu/files/original/be7d658c01be5bdde5fb3c2d7d277407.jpg 8406901f4c889ed577415dd6611e8021 Place A location with a street address or larger region. Examples include building, statue, piazza, fountain, port, neighborhood, paintings, sculptures, frescoes, floors. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ponte Sisto Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anna Guasco (2016) Edited by Tim Abbott (2026) Description An account of the resource Ponte Sisto connects the east bank of the Tiber River to its west bank at Trastevere. The original bridge, called Pons Agrippae, Pons Antoninus, Pons Aurelianus, Pons Janiculensis, or Ponte Valentinianus, depending on the source, was an ancient Roman structure. It collapsed sometime between the late 8th and 11th centuries, severing an important physical link between Trastevere and the more heavily settled east bank of Rome. What is fascinating about this site, however, is that it continued to have importance after its collapse. It had a tangible impact on the shipping patterns of the Tiber, because its ruins made the already-narrow channel even more treacherous. Yet the bridge also continued to have a more abstract significance: the standard guidebook of the 11th to 14th centuries, known as the Mirabilia, lists this bridge as one of many extant structures, and references it for geographic orientation. Thus, the site continued to be known during the medieval era. In 1473, Pope Sixtus IV decided to reconstruct the bridge slightly downstream to provide alternate routes of foot traffic for the 1475 Jubilee, and named the ponte after himself. Jill E. Blondin argues that Sixtus undertook his urban restoration work to promote himself, and to communicate "the message of his secular and sacred authority to observers" (1). In her analysis of both the bridge and Sixtus's other public works, Blondin finds that Sixtus emphasized both his own greatness and the greatness of antique and contemporary Rome. Blondin concludes that Sixtus "drew on antique symbols, sculptures, and buildings to create a glorious, new Christian Rome fashioned to represent him squarely in charge of the civic and spiritual dimensions of the city" (24). With Blondin's reminder of the continuing power of ancient Rome throughout the medieval and Renaissance periods, we may begin to imagine the Ponte Sisto as a site that, due to its ancient origins, may have continued to have symbolic significance even when it was in pieces in the Tiber. Abstract A summary of the resource. original bridge, called Pons Agrippae, Pons Antoninus, Pons Aurelianus, Pons Janiculensis, or Ponte Valentinianus, depending on the source, was an ancient Roman structure. It collapsed sometime between the late 8th and 11th centuries, severing an important physical link between Trastevere and the more heavily settled east bank of Rome. What is fascinating about this site, however, is that it continued to have importance after its collapse. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context pontesisto_2015 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Blondin, Jill E. "Power Made Visible: Pope Sixtus IV as Urbis Restaurator in Quattrocento Rome," in The Catholic Historical Review Vol. 90., No. 1 (Jan., 2005): 1-25. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome. Portrait of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Nichols, Francis Morgan ed. and trans. Marvels of Rome: Mirabilia Urbis Romae. New York: Italica Press, 1986. " Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Piazza Trilussa, 00153 Roma RM Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1500s Type The nature or genre of the resource Place public memory The Tiber Tiber River