Ponte delle Tette Bridge

Ponte delle Tette, an unusual reminder of the Carampane district

At the boundary of the sestieri of San Polo and Santa Croce, in the ancient parish of San Cassiano, the small Ponte delle Tette ("Bridge of Breasts") crosses the Rio di San Cassiano. Its interest lies less in its architecture than in the history of the Carampane area, long associated with Venetian prostitution. Around 1500, the same passage was still identified in the sources as the Ponte dell'Agnello and constituted one of the direct accesses to the houses of Ca' Rampani.

The name Carampane traditionally comes from the Ca' Rampani, the properties of the ancient patrician Rampani family, extinct in 1319. Giuseppe Boerio reported in the 19th century that these houses were assigned in 1421, with the government's agreement, to prostitutes. Research based on archives, however, gives a more complex history: prostitution is attested at Ca' Rampani at least from the 1350s, and the place still appears in 1421 and 1447 in documents concerning an activity exercised outside the authorized framework. The Republic in fact repeatedly tried to concentrate and regulate prostitution around Rialto, without ever succeeding in confining it completely to a single district.

The Italian word carampana is also traditionally attached to this toponym. However, it no longer simply means "prostitute": in today's Italian, the familiar and pejorative term rather designates a woman considered vulgar, loud, old, or unattractive.

Today, the Ponte delle Tette remains a very modest bridge, without monumental decoration. Its curiosity lies above all in its toponymy and in what it tells about the way the Republic sought to monitor behaviors and the use of urban space. The small calli of Carampane also allow you to discover a particularly discreet area just a few minutes from Rialto.

Sources and additional information

Giuseppe Tassini - Tette, Curiosità Veneziane ; Giuseppe Boerio - Carampane ; Treccani - Carampana ; Saundra Weddle - Mobility and Prostitution in Early Modern Venice.