Interview to Dr. Miquel Vives and Prof. Andrés Martínez!
/*- Which is the origin of the bridge and why did they build it here? - The bridge has a roman origin. It was built around the year 10 before Christ. It was on a Roman road called the “Via Augusta”, which had different names and went from Rome until the end of everything, to Cadiz. It had a length of 130 meters long, a very wide pavement, almost horizontal and it probably had three arches above the riverbed. From the Roman time almost anything is conserved, only the piles of the bridge, which was made with great stones that have inscriptions of the legions constructed it, and there is an honorary triumphal arc that surely, rather than triumphal, it indicated limits and it was located on the left margin, which was made later. We don’t know when the bridge was destroyed. Martorell is a town documented in 1033 that was built specifically as a bridgehead to defend this bridge, which defended Barcelona from attacks from the Al-Andalus. To defend this bridgehead, at the top of the hill there was the castle of Rosanes, which nowadays we know as the castle of the Meiret. - And when did they re-do it architecturally? - Well, between 1283 and 1285 it is known that the bridge was rebuilt, in the Gothic form, which was the style of that time, under the direction (we even know this) of Bernat Salles. It had two pointed arches, one of them is larger and the other one is smaller. Because of the fact that it was narrower and it had a strong inclination, although not as much as now, it was only suitable for scope transport with mules. When the carts’ circulation became important again, at the 15th century, instead of crossing the bridge, the carts passed through the boat that was placed in Sant Andreu de la Barca. The bridge has been repaired at least twice, once in the 18th century, by the military engineer Joan Martín Cerdeño. The bridge was very broken and it only was a consolidation. The second reparation we know took place in 1963 under the direction of the architect Camil Pallàs. This reparation remade all the central arc that had been flown in January of 1939, when the republican army was in retreat. - Why do they call it the devil's bridge? - Well, there is a legend that explains that an old woman couldn’t cross the river. She desperately offered whatever the devil wanted in exchange for a bridge. The devil appeared immediately and they made a deal: the first creature to cross the bridge would be the price of the work. Then the old woman tricked the devil and made an animal cross the bridge (a kitten). So the devil did the work but the old woman saved herself. It is a very common type of legend, there are many devil bridges, it is estimated that only in Catalonia there can be about 50 and the whole area of the French Pyrenees, the Alps, the Valcans, in the ancient roman empire’s territory there are hundreds or thousands of bridges that have similar legends. - And what is the meaning of this legend? - There are many architectural, technical works made along the Middle Ages. When its origin is forgotten it seems that, if it is very difficult to construct it, people would not know how to do it, attributing those constructions to the Romans was a bit difficult. And the reason is that the Christianism claimed that they were superior to the Romans: then if there was a construction that the Romans had made and the Christians didn’t know how, it was a problem. Then it was very easy to make a legend that told that this construction, the bridge, the building, was not made by the Romans, but by the devil. It was a matter of keeping a good image to maintain this reputed superiority. The problem is that if you admit that the devil was the author, then there is a moral problem: how do you use a construction made by the devil? It was necessary to gain the right to use it by deceiving the devil. If you had been smarter than the devil, that gave you the right to use the construction. On the other hand, legends always say that the construction is often not completely finished, it can be used but it is not finished. A stone is missing because the trick has consisted on making a rooster crow before the sun rises, and then, tricked by the rooster, it is not completely constructed but it’s usable. There are even cathedrals that have a legend that tells that it was built by the devil: Poland's cathedral, whose facade was not completed until the 19th century, was said to have never been completed because it was the work of the devil. And that was the explanation. So, there is a lot of bridges but there are also all kind of buildings that have a similar legend.*/Here you can listen an audio by to retired teachers from our high school (Pompeu Fabra) about Devil's bridge from an historical point of view and a traditional point of view
Dr. Vives is an historian and it was Head of the department of historic of our school and also principal in the 1990's. Proof. Martínez
Here's how you can make bold and italic text. Here's how you can add an image: Here's how to make a list: To learn more HTML/CSS, check out these tutorials!