Road station
Ad Pontem Mulvii
Ponte Milvio
Listen to the story
Ad Pontem Iulii, as the map reads, should be the Milvian Bridge, Ponte Milvio, where the Via Flaminia crosses the Tiber just outside Rome: a copyist misread an abbreviation and turned Milvii into Iulii. Here in 312 AD Constantine defeated Maxentius, who drowned in the river. On the map the name and the short distance to Rome are squeezed above the road, and below them, in tiny letters, runs via Flaminia, its last letter lost to a small hole in the parchment.