ABSTRACT
Like other allegorical places, a bridge over a river in The Faerie Queene serves a generic function: to embody the idea of restricted passage either to a desired goal or (like an initiatory test) from one kind of existence to another. In the Roman world, bridges were presided over by the gods Janus and Portunus, and were associated with rituals of initiation, having significance as legal and figurative thresholds to moral and social behavior (Cicero De natura deorum 2.27, Livy Ab urbe condita 2.10). Folkloric elements, which link bridges to various kinds of violent or unsocial activity, appear in medieval romance and religious allegory (Malory Morte Darthur 6.10, Catharine of Siena The Orcherd of Syon). Bridges also figure prominently in the iconography of civic humanism; observant Renaissance travelers took note of their presence in a landscape. A well-maintained bridge was a sign of social order and stability; a large and beautiful one (such as the Rialto or London Bridge) epitomized cultural achievement. Whatever the period, bridges served as a focal point illustrating how art of one sort or another relates to nature.
