Fireworks at the Devil’s Bridge Halloween Celebration in Borgo a Mozzano

The traditional fireworks display on the Serchio river. The Devil’s Bridge, (a majestic work of 1200) is the setting for what is certainly the moment of greatest emotional intensity of the event. Satan from the underworld unleashes the wrath of him. The fire blazes between the arches of the bridge; the door closes.

The Devil’s Bridge: the legend

A daring, very courageous humpback architectural construction juts out with its asymmetrical arches above the Serchio river. The singularity of its structure has always ignited the enthusiasm and curiosity of history and art lovers not only for the undoubted beauty of the work, but also for the difficulties of implementation, especially if we consider the very remote era of construction. to be ascribed to the 11th century. Called “del Diavolo” for an anti-legend and “della Maddalena” from an aedicule which preserves the statue of the Saint, the bridge was built by the Countess Matilde. According to an ancient legend, it seems that the builder, failing to raise the main arch of the bridge, had implored the collaboration of the Devil. These, in exchange for the first soul to cross the bridge, he granted his help, completing the work in a single night. Then the builder, slyly, incited a dog to run up the bridge; so the Devil, mocked, had to be satisfied with the soul of a beast, disappearing into the waters of the Serchio. For many peoples and cultures, from ancient times the construction of bridges was considered a delicate operation from the religious point of view, since the bridge artificially unites what is divided in nature.