Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/374

Rh 330 BRIDGES [EXAMPLES. Teverone. This bridge was blown up during the panic caused by the approach of Garibaldi to Home in 1867. Old London Bridge. wall. Owing chiefly to the excellence of the mortar employed, this arch withstood a flood which rose nearly 30 feet above the springing of the arch. This structure is one of the many &quot;Devil s Bridges.&quot; In the year 1178 a famous bridge was begun over the Avigno FIG. 106. Bridge at St Chamas. We see here, perhaps, one of the earliest examples of the castle built to protect the bridge against an enemy or to enforce payment of a toll, the bridge and castle of media3val romance. 74. 1000 to 1300 A.D. A very bold arch over the Serchio near Lucca is shown in plate 58 of Haun and Hosking s treatise, with the approximate date of 1000 A.t&amp;gt;., but the authority for this date is not given. The span of the arch is 120 feet, and the roadway, which stands at a height of more than 60 feet above the water level, is only 9 feet wide ; in fact the arch is little more than a broid Fia. 107. Ponte Salaro. Rhone at Avignon by Saint Benezet, the head of one of certain religious confraternities, which undertook the building or repair of bridges during the Middle Ages, and were called Fratres Pontis or Hospitalarii Pontificcs. The bridge was finished in 1 1 88. Four arches still remain, and are remarkable in having au elliptical outline with the radius of curvature smaller at the crown than at the haunch, a form which accords more truly with the linear equilibrated arch than the modern flat ellipse with the largest radius at the crown. A description and drawing of this remarkable bridge will be found in the Dictionnaire raisonnee d Architecture of M. Viollet-le-Duc. A religious confraternity, founded in the first instance by a certain Mary, the maiden daughter of a ferryman, is said to have built a timber bridge near the site of the f.. ; r *. g n. e*Trf lK/ p !. &quot;f .^&quot;f, i f. I Fig. 108. Old London Bridge, A.D. 1700. present London Bridge, but it seems quite uncertain when the first bridge over the Thames was built. There is little doubt, however, that it was of timber, and had frequently to be reconstructed. Stow, in his Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, gives a description of the build ing of the first stone structure, commonly called Old Lon don Bridge, Plate XVIII. fig. I. 1 Heavy repairs were frequently necessary, and the timber houses built on the bridge were often burnt down ; yet the main structure appears to have remained unaltered until &quot; About the year 1176 the stone bridge over the river Thames at London was begun to be founded by the foresaid Peter of Colechurch (called priest and chaplain before), &quot; near unto the bridge of timber, but more towards the west, for 1 read that Botolph s wharf was in the Conqueror s time at the head of London Bridge. The king assisted this work, a cardinal then being legate here ; and Kichard, archbishop of Canterbury, gave one thousand marks towards the foundation. The course of the river for the time was turned another way about by a trench cast for that purpose beginning, as is sup- the beginning of this century. It does nut seem improb able that Peter of Colechurch and Saint Benezet may have been in communication with one another, both being heads of religious bodies engaged in similar works at the same time. Their letters to one another would interest engineers. A French brother Isembert, from Saintes, suc ceeded Peter as engineer for London Bridge. Stow describes the partial rebuilding of the timber houses in 1G45 : - &quot; The building was of timber, very substantial and beautiful, fur posed, east about Rotherhithe, and ending in the west about Patrick- sey, now termed Battersea. This work, to wit the arches, chapel, and stone bridge over the Thames at London, having been thirty- three years in building, was, in the year 1209, finished by the worthy merchants of London Serle Mercer, William Almaine, and Benedick Botewrite, principal masters of work ; for Peter of Colechurch deceased four years before the work was finished, and was buried in the chapel builded on the same bridge in the year 1205.&quot;