The Pont Neuf (German: New Bridge) is the oldest preserved in the original state bridge over the Seine in Paris. Construction began in 1578 and lasted until 1607.
The arch bridge is 238 m long and 20 m wide. It connects the Quai du Louvre on the right bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement with the Quai de Conti and the Quai des Grands Augustins on the left bank of the Seine in the 6th arrondissement. Around the middle, it crosses the western tip of the Île de la Cité. On the right side of the Seine, it continues from Rue du Pont Neuf, on the left the Seine from Rue Dauphine.
In the middle of the 16th century, there were only four bridges in Paris, the Petit Pont, Pont Notre-Dame, Pont Saint-Michel and Pont au Change. The construction of another - new - bridge, which was to connect the Louvre with the emerged from the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés market towns, became more urgent, as the extensive metropolitan traffic had already caused great damage to the existing bridges, which also were completely built with houses.
Already in 1556 King Henry II had envisaged the construction of a new bridge, but his plan failed for a long time because of the resistance of the Parisian merchants. Only more than twenty years later, on the evening of May 31, 1578, King Henry III. the foundation stone for the fifth bridge in Paris, whose essential feature was that there should be no houses and shops on it. One should therefore transcend them and at the same time be able to see the Seine flowing under it. That had not existed in Paris and met with the Paris merchants, who mourned the unused sales room on the bridge, on rejection. The bridge was finally completed after nearly thirty years of construction in the reign of King Henry IV. Even in the just completed two years later Pont Henri IV in Châtellerault and the only 25 years later finished Pont Neuf in Toulouse, no development was allowed despite similar breadth.
In 1985, the bridge was covered by artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The preparatory phase of this project had taken ten years, partly because of the need to obtain the agreement of the then mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac.