It was designed by Leonard Ximenes who purposed to build the bridge in respect of the peculiarities of an environment having characteristics so predominant as to be "supported" and not "contrasted": «To consider those untamed crags – noted Ximenes – as ornamentations of some fineness and comeliness, would be the same as contrasting nature that would have instead always boasted its conquest over all ornamentation; I have therefore instead decided to support it artfully, assembling the entirety with rusticated, disorderly and almost shapeless ashlar.

Inaugurated in 1772, the one-arch bridge was made of ashlar masonry and enriched by elegant twin fountains. This bridge and the one over the Sestaione represented for the time two major feats of architecture and engineering, situated on the Royal Road into Modenese territory.

On September 27, 1944, retreating Nazi troops mined and blew up the monumental bridge. It was later rebuilt but, unlike the bridge on the Sestaione, not following Ximenes’ original plan. In the course of maintenance works on the banks of the stream, several significant fragments were recovered (bosses of worked stone, ashlar fragments, stone decorations and part of the keystone mascaron), which will be recomposed in the form of a monument in the nascent commemorative garden, sited near the old bridge and promoted by the Communes of Piteglio and San Marcello Pistoiese.