It is said that Sultan Beyazid II commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to design a bridge to span the Golden Horn in 1503, only 50 years after the city was captured from the Byzantines. The great artist and engineer did the design, but alas the bridge was never built. The present Galata Bridge, built in 1992, replaced a much-loved pontoon bridge dating from 1912 that gently swayed and rolled as the seas moved beneath it.