Enea Grazioso Lanfranconi (source: Courtesy of Bratislavské Rožky)
Get off the tram at the Lanfranconi stop for the Lafranconi dorm in Bratislava. The different spelling of the two names is not an error.
Even though Italian engineer Enea Grazioso Lanfranconi has left a significant footprint in Bratislava like the redesigned riverbed of the Danube River, his name has survived over the decades to the present day in distorted form – with one ‘n’ missing. The fourth bridge over the Danube, completed in 1992, was given this incorrect name, as well.
The Bratislava Public Transport company now decided to correct this historical error, when it changed the name of the stop near the bridge from Lafranconi to Lanfranconi as part of changes effective from mid-December.
“The stop is named after Enea Grazioso Lanfranconi, a significant personality and the last polymath of Pressburg, present-day Bratislava, whose name has been used in an incorrect way in other places of Bratislava,” Katarína Rajčanová told The Slovak Spectator.
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Comenius University has registered the change in the name of the stop, reflecting the correct name of the engineer, but has not pondered changing the name of the dorm.
“It’s a name that has been used for many years and it is now part of our history,” Lenka Miller, spokesperson of Comenius University, told The Slovak Spectator. The distorted version of the polymath's name has been used for almost one hundred years, she noted.
Nearby Lafranconi Bridge is located at the edge of the Karlova Ves borough. Its authorities have not registered any request to rename it.
