Pont d'Aël

Interesting facts

The single arch spans just over 14 metres across a cleft that is only about 12 metres wide but 66 metres deep.

Water was taken from the Grand Eyvia about 2.9 km above the bridge and ran down a channel with a gradient of roughly 6.6 metres per kilometre.

Along the cliffs the channel was cut as a half-gallery into the rock, which let builders attack it at many points at once and save time.

Half-gallery channels like this are rare in Roman engineering, with a comparable example on the water line of Side in Turkey.

The water was destined for around 200 hectares of farmland west of Aosta, lying 50 to 150 metres above the Dora Baltea river.

A full survey in 1996 by the engineer Mathias Döring ruled out the old idea that the aqueduct supplied Roman Aosta, which drew water from the Buthier.

The first known description and sketch of the bridge were made by the Savoyard historian Pingone in 1550.

After the Roman water stopped flowing, the channel along the top of the bridge became a footpath and mule track, a role it still plays.

It is one of three Roman bridges surviving intact in the Aosta Valley, alongside Pont-Saint-Martin and the Pont de Pierre in Aosta.

West of the bridge the conduit continued through a rock-cut tunnel about 1.9 metres high and 1 metre wide.

Why it is worth it

Pont d'Aël is a Roman bridge-aqueduct thrown across the gorge of the Grand Eyvia torrent at the mouth of the Cogne valley, and it is remarkable for how much of it still stands two thousand years later. A single stone arch of just over 14 metres carries a narrow structure 60 metres long and only 2.26 metres wide, some 22 metres tall, perched about 66 metres above the bed of a ravine that elsewhere deepens to 150 metres. The tiny hamlet of Pont d'Aël clusters at its end.

An inscription on the bridge names its builder and its date. It records that it was built when the emperor Caesar Augustus was consul for the thirteenth time — that is, in 3 BC — by Caius Avillius Caimus, son of Caius, from Padua, at his own expense. The bridge was thus a private undertaking rather than a work of the Roman state. The bridge was part of a channel about six kilometres long that brought water to farmland west of Aosta and to installations for washing iron ore near Aymavilles, the ore coming from the mines of the Cogne valley.

The engineering is ingenious. Inside the lower level runs a covered corridor about 50 metres long and almost 4 metres high, lit by small windows. It served as an inspection gallery: from here workers could check the watertightness of the conduit carried above, since any leak could freeze in winter and split the masonry. The water itself flowed in a channel along the top of the bridge. The bridge belongs to the municipality of Aymavilles in the Aosta Valley, whose capital, Aosta, is itself a city of Roman origin.

Getting there

Pont d'Aël is in the municipality of Aymavilles, at the entrance to the Cogne valley, about 8–10 km south-west of Aosta. The nearest airport is Turin Airport (TRN), about 63 km away in a straight line.

From the encyclopaedia

The Pont d'Aël is a Roman aqueduct located in a village of the same name in the comune of Aymavilles in Aosta Valley, northern Italy. It was built in the year 3 BC for irrigation purposes and supplying water for the newly founded colony of Augusta Praetoria, which is now known as Aosta. The water was directed through a neighbouring valley 66 m above the floor of the Aosta valley, through a sophisticated system. The aqueduct is 6 km long in total. In addition to its unusual position, the construction, which was originally thought to be a three-story structure, shows more unique features such as a control corridor below the water line, as well as explicit private funding. Today, the water channel of the aqueduct serves as a public walking trail.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Pont d'Aël

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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From the encyclopaedia