Michelangelo-inspired cardboard bridge floats above Rome's Tiber river

ROME: An illuminated 18-metre long cardboard bridge suspended by three large white helium balloons is floating above Rome's Tiber river, bringing to life a project imagined but never realised by Michelangelo.

Pope Paul III commissioned the artist to create a bridge connecting the Palazzo Farnese, a 16th Century family palace that now hosts the French embassy to Italy, with the gardens of a villa on the other side of the river. It was never completed after Michelangelo's death, but the "Farnese Bridge" installation by French artist Olivier Grossetete is a tribute to the Renaissance master.