The Platano stream runs about 220 metres below the carriageway. The viaduct that takes its name crosses the gorge exactly on the boundary between Basilicata and Campania, between Vietri di Potenza and Romagnano al Monte, and it is the third-highest bridge in Italy. Opened to traffic in 1978, it is also the second-highest strut-frame bridge in the world: only the Sfalassà Viaduct stands above it, and that one carries the signature of the same two engineers, Silvano Zorzi and Sabatino Procaccia.
What to see
The stampella of the Italian name is the inclined strut. There are two of them here, in steel, leaning against the reinforced-concrete piers to form a two-hinged frame; between them the steel box-girder deck spans about 291 metres, while the approach spans are in reinforced or prestressed concrete. The structure measures about 630 metres in all and carries the two carriageways of the RA 5 connector, the road that links Potenza to the A2 motorway.
The way it was put together can still be read in its shape. One strut was raised vertically, a section at a time, and then tilted out over the gorge; the other arrived ready-made from the works and was hauled to the end of the structure, down in the gorge. The central span was erected in short lengths by mobile cranes, with the boxes assembled on site at each end until they met in the middle. In the seventies and eighties Italian designers turned to this procedure more than once: at Sfalassà, at Rago, at Cadore.
Visiting
It is not a monument but a working motorway bridge, owned by ANAS, and you cross it in a few seconds on the connector that runs from Sicignano degli Alburni to Potenza. Within the territory of Vietri di Potenza the road runs from the Vietri-Balvano junction to the viaduct itself, which marks the boundary with Romagnano al Monte, in the province of Salerno. Between 2020 and 2021 the structure underwent concrete repair and protection works.
Our editors' tip
From the bridge you cannot see the bridge: driving across, there is no way to notice what is holding you up. To understand it, look at it from below, from the Platano side, because the two-hinged frame can only be read from the gorge: that is where 220 metres stop being a number. And if you ever get down to Calabria, the comparison to make is with Sfalassà, the only bridge of this kind in the world that stands higher.