Description
White, Nelson Clarke, Il Ponte del Diavolo – Borgo a Mozzano – Tuscany. Photograph by Nelson C. White – 1928. Albumen print. Image 12.5 cm x 21.5 cm, with wide border margins 6-7 cm, untrimmed sheet. Identified by title, place and dated in the American painter’s own hand in the lower left-hand corner by title and by “Photograph by Nelson C. White, 1928.” On the verso someone has written, “Vicino della Rocca” and the number “5”. Built in the fourteenth century by the Countess Matilda of Canossa to cross the Serchio River, the famous medieval bridge at Borgo a Mozzano (Lucca) was dedicated as “Oratorio alla Maddalena” in the sixteenth century. Legend has it that in order to finish the bridge on time, the builder enlisted the help of Satan, who completed the work in one night, but at the price of the soul of the first person to cross the bridge, thereafter known as “Il Ponte del Diavolo.” Fine.
