For more than 2,000 years, it has been an obsessive dream: a plan to link the Mediterranean Sea’s largest island to mainland Italy. It began with the Romans, who, according to Pliny the Elder, built a bridge of boats and barrels across the strait of Messina in 251BC to transport 140 war elephants captured from the Carthaginians.
Centuries later, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini embraced the same vision, followed by rightwing prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who made the bridge a flagship project. Then, in 2022, after being appointed Italy’s infrastructure minister, Matteo Salvini revived the mythic ambition, claiming that the ferry crossings “cost people more in a year than it would cost to build the bridge”.
