Acquedotto medievale (Ponti del Diavolo)

Stray arches of brick and stone stride across the lanes under Salerno's Bonadies hill, and locals have called them the Ponti del Diavolo for centuries. They are the remains of a medieval bridge-canal, one of the city's most recognisable silhouettes and a rare survivor of medieval hydraulic engineering in southern Italy.

Why it matters

Benedictine monks built the bridge-canal to carry water from hills north of Salerno to the monastery of San Benedetto. Popular tradition attributed the structure to the wizard Berliario, said to have raised it in a single stormy night with demonic help. The nickname Ponti del Diavolo persisted, as did a superstition that passing beneath the arches after dark brought bad luck. The monument uses pointed arches before the Gothic style became common in Italy.

What to notice

Along Via Arce, the surviving sections show tall, narrow pointed arches stacked over lower round ones. The arrangement maintained a precise slope for the water channel while allowing streets and a stream to pass beneath. Later demolition broke the structure in places, leaving gaps along the original channel's course. The aqueduct stood on the old fortified plateau above the historic centre, where the Rafastia stream once ran.

Context and history

The aqueduct served the Benedictine monastery of San Benedetto, which stood by the eastern walls; its monks are credited with the construction, with proposed datings running between the ninth and tenth centuries. Water arrived from two branches, one gathering flow from the hills north of the city and the other from the eastern heights, converging near Via Arce, which itself takes its name from the structure. A later underground branch carried water onward to the convent of the Piantanova along via dei Mercanti. Local historian Giovanni Guardia estimated the aqueduct's original length at about 650 metres, with its tallest sections reaching roughly 21 metres. Demolition reduced the standing remains to a few hundred metres. The last evidence of the system in service dates to 1950. Via Arce once lay inside a walled, fortified district known as the plateau of the Torretta, grouping the quarters of San Benedetto, the Mutilati and Fieravecchia, and the gate of Portarotese closed the street at its far end. The devil legend attached to the wizard also known as Pietro Barliario, an alchemist figure revered and feared in equal measure, whose story was famous across Campania until the sixteenth century.