Autostrada del Sole Motorway (A1)

The Autostrada del Sole, albeit being an infrastructure that was completed over half a century ago, crosses the Italian peninsula from north to south along 760 km, and as of today, it is still Italy's longest motorway. 

Also known by the name A1, the "Autosole" and "Italian backbone" allowed connecting Milan, Bologna, Florence and Naples, drastically reducing travel times. It was an ambitious project at the time. In fact, in 1956 Giovanni Gronchi, the at the time Italian President, laid the first stone in the San Donato Milanese area.

The project represents a symbol of Italian engineering excellence for the time: 760 km of asphalt were laid along one of Europe's most complex orographic contexts, with an overall 113 viaducts, 572 overpasses and 35 tunnels built on the motorway. 

The route was divided into multiple lots and the work was completed in just 8 years. Many of the companies that merged into the Webuild Group over time, participated in building the lots that allowed creating this titanic work. Among the assigned lots, there's Lot 7b in Florence, which included the longest tunnel: 930 metres.

The entire Autostrada del Sole project was inaugurated in 1964. And, besides joining the nation, it allowed speeding up its economic renaissance as goods could travel faster along the Italian boot, bringing an improvement to the life quality of all Italians.