The Ponte delle Zigherane is an iron bridge over the Leno stream, in Rovereto, a little upstream of where it joins the Adige. It was inaugurated in 1877, when the town was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and is 35 metres long. The name comes from the «zigherane», the women cigar-makers of the Manifattura Tabacchi, which had begun work in 1854 and by the end of the century employed over a thousand workers, mostly women.
What to see
It is a piece of nineteenth-century iron engineering, spanning the Leno on the stretch where the stream is about to reach the Adige.
It served the women workers on their way to the Manifattura, the large factory created to give work to Borgo Sacco, Rovereto and the whole Vallagarina.
Visiting
The bridge is in the open and can be seen at any time; crossing and any restrictions should be checked on the spot.
Our editors' tip
It was the women workers who wanted it. A few years after the factory opened they began to tax themselves to build a bridge that would shorten the daily walk between home and work: until then the only bridge in Rovereto was the Forbato, in Santa Maria. Later they fought for the first company crèche in Trentino, opened in 1924.
