By the river Park in Teramo, near Piazzale San Francesco (under the newsagent’s kiosk), an old semi-ruined bridge is to be seen, known to a few ones only.

Built between the 12th and the first half of the 13th century, its surviving arch is made of travertine of Civitella. It is the Bridge of the hanged men (also known as “de li impisi” in the regional dialect), which is being mentioned still nowadays, as the oral tradition handed down to us, because of the mysterious fascination hovering about his sinister renown.

The reference to the violent deaths of many individuals over the centuries is clear.
“A denomination which, during the time, might not have been understood any more nor interpreted in its purely etymological value” argues Dr Paola Di Felice, the director of the Archaeological Museum in Teramo, which is opened on 15th August too. “On the contrary, it might be quoted in the same way as some obsolete terms whose meaning is nowadays absolutely unknown, but which very often refer to historical events and keep on being interesting signs of social, economical and political situations no more understood”.

In Teramo just a few monuments and urban elements, fountains and squares, statues and habitual attendance places still belong to the collective imagination and to the common tradition and memory. The awareness of them is being more and more forgotten and, piece by piece, their memory and physicality are being destroyed: the houses of families Urbani, Antonelli, Melatino and Pannella, the Church of St. Matthew, the high medieval bridge under the sports hall in Scapriano (upon river Vezzola).

The medieval Bridge of the hanged men, with reference to a specific episode of Italian history and to a violence become habitual.

“The Teramo Statutes of 1440 edited by historian Francesco Savini (Florence, G. Berbera, 1889)” explain Ms Di Felice  “refer to the bridges of the several artificial channels ( de canalibus) which would bring water to the mills, and among such bridges the medieval one still nowadays called “de li impisi” is quoted. The bridge, as we can assume from historian Palma in the 3rd volume of his  “Storia della città e della diocesi di Teramo” (History of the city and the diocese of  Teramo) of 1823, has remained entire with both  arches till 1727, very little of the arch is still visible under Porta Vezzola, while the left part was almost totally covered during the works of excavation and restoration of the current Piazzale S. Francesco”.

According to Ms Di Felice, it owes its name to the gloomy custom to raise the gallows to execute hangings. “When this custom was abandoned is unknown” goes on the director “apart from a 1910 picture contained in the volume ‘Teramo com’era’ (Teramo how it was) edited by F. Aurini, C. Cappelli, F. Eugeni, M. Sgattoni (Roma, Editalia 1996), where a niche dedicated to the Virgin Mary can be seen in the place where the authors claim the gallows would be raised and the executions happened”.

The bridge waits for an occasion to be enhanced: it is one of the surviving pieces of the medieval history of the province of Teramo and of the region of Abruzzo, which would be worth knowing as far as its historical value and its social implications are concerned, because it brings to light, together with the tragic fate of families  Melatino, Antonelli and Acquaviva, an almost forgotten historical cross-section which, thanks to the Archeoclub of Teramo, will come back to life.