Ponte dei Sette Martiri: A Bridge that Remembers

On the east end of Venice, in a beautiful setting, is a bridge named for an ugly event.

By boat, as you emerge from the Grand Canal, passing the Doge's Palace heading east, you'll notice a series of bridges along the walkway.

Or, if you're on foot and head east from the Doge's Palace and continue along the Riva degli Schiavoni waterfront, you'll eventually cross the bridge of the Veneta Marina that ends at the entrance to Via Garibaldi.

At this point, the name of the waterfront changes to the Riva dei Sette Martiri, or "Shore of the Seven Martyrs." The Riva dei Sette Martiri stretches from the bridge of the Veneta Marina all the way to the Bridge of the Seven Martyrs, near the Giardini. Between these two bridges, an event of tragic cruelty took place.

In 1944, near the end of World War II, Venice was under German occupation. One night a German sentry soldier disappeared.

In retaliation, the German command decided to shoot some political prisoners. So, the Germans took seven prisoners and tied them together between two lamp posts at the foot of the Bridge of the Veneta Marina . . . .

Photo by Matt Buck

Photo by Martina Sglorlon, martinaway.com

Then German soldiers awakened about 500 Venetian residents in the Via Garibaldi area and forced them onto the waterfront to witness the 7 a.m. shootings. The corpses of the victims were left there, where they fell, for several days as a warning.

But, ironically, not long after the reprisal killings, the body of the missing German soldier was found in a nearby canal. He had evidently had too much to drink the night he went missing, fell in and drowned, making the executions of the seven prisoners an act of senseless terror. (According to some local sources, on the night of the soldier's disappearance there had been "copious drinking" on the German navy ships docked nearby.)

The Bridge of the Seven Martyrs is near the Giardini vaporetto stop at the entrance to the public gardens. You can identify it by the angels carved on the front and back.

My own photo.

According to an account written in 2004 by Leopoldo Pietragnoli for the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the event, the seven prisoners who died were Aliprando Armellini, 24 years old; Gino Conti, 46 years old; Bruno De Gasperi, 20 years old; two brothers -- Luciano and Alfredo Gelmi, 19 and 20 years old, respectively; Girolamo Guasto, 25 years old; and Alfredo Vivian, 36 years old.