The exterior view
White marble suspended between palace and prison over the canal โ Venice's second icon.
Didier Descouens โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Son of Groucho from Scotland โ CC BY 2.0 ยท Ekaterina Valinakova โ CC0 ยท Ekaterina Valinakova โ CC0
No โ by the time it was built, death sentences were rare, and most who crossed went to ordinary imprisonment. The dark image is a nineteenth-century romantic invention, now more attached to the place than its history.
Ponte della Paglia on the waterfront is the classic angle, near-empty before 8am. Ponte de la Canonica on the far side is calmer with a different depth down the canal.
Do not buy the ticket just for the bridge โ but the palace fully earns it anyway, and the crossing arrives as the route's dramatic finale.
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The Bridge of Sighs is a small covered bridge of white marble crossing the canal between the Doge's Palace and the prisons built in the early 1600s. The condemned walked it from courtroom to cell, and the name โ popularised by Byron โ comes from the prisoner's sigh at his last glimpse of Venice through its two small grated windows. From outside, you see it free from the Ponte della Paglia on the waterfront โ one of Venice's most photographed views. From inside, it is crossed only on a Doge's Palace visit, where you genuinely pass through as prisoners did and see the lagoon from those same windows. The romantic legend holds that lovers who kiss in a gondola beneath it at sunset are bound forever โ hence the little traffic jam of boats under it every evening.
White marble suspended between palace and prison over the canal โ Venice's second icon.
Inside the Doge's Palace you walk it as the condemned did, past the sighing windows.
A sunset kiss beneath it makes love eternal โ so Venice tells its lovers.
Ponte dei Sospiri, 30122 Venice