Love padlocks began cropping up (or being locked down) in Europe in the early 2000s, particularly at Rome’s Ponte Milvio.
Federico Moccia, author of Ho Volgia Di Te (“I Want You”), may be to blame. In the novel, his Italian hero woos a woman by telling her a tall tale. If they wrap a chain around the third lamppost on the northern side of the Ponte Milvio, lock it and toss the key into the Tiber, they will be tied together forever.
They can now be seen in Paris, Florence, Dublin, Cologne, Seoul, Serbia…