The third bridge to be built over the Grand Canal in Venice was
an iron truss structure built near the Venice railway station in
1857. As with the truss structure of the same vintage at Ponte
dell'Accademia, it was replaced in the early 1930s with a new
arched bridge, the Ponte degli Scalzi ("bridge of the
barefoot"). The new structure was built between 1932 and 1934 to
a design by Eugenio Miozzi. It is a stone arch span of 40m,
rising 6.75m. The bridge is only 0.8m thick at its crown, which
is remarkable slender for the type and age of the bridge. Stone
was chosen instead of reinforced concrete to avoid future
corrosion problems. The construction cost 2.55m lira. Miozzi
adopted an unusual technique in construction of the arch, which
he called the "compensatory systematic lesion" method. This
involved leaving open joints at the crown and springing, which
would close as the bridge's formwork was removed. This ensured
that in the dead load condition, the arch was subject to minimal
bending effects, greatly redu