The first recorded bridge over the Golden Horn was built during the reign of Justinian the Great in the 6th century, close to the area near the Theodosian Land Walls at the western end of the city.

In 1453, before the Fall of Constantinople, the Turks assembled a mobile bridge by placing their ships side-by-side across the water, so that their troops could move from one side of the Golden Horn to the other.

Utilising three well-known geometrical principles, the pressed-bow, parabolic curve and keystone arch, artist Leonardo da Vinci designed an unprecedented single span 280 m (920 ft) long bridge across the Golden Horn, which, had it been constructed, would have become the longest bridge span in the world.

Another Italian artist, Michelangelo, was also invited to contribute a design but rejected the proposal, and the idea of building a bridge across the Golden Horn was shelved until the 19th century.

The project was carried out by Deputy Lord High Admiral Fevzi Ahmet Paşa using the workers and facilities of the naval arsenal at nearby Kasımpaşa.

In 1845 the first Galata Bridge at the mouth of the waterway (i.e. on the current site) was constructed out of wood at the request of the Valide Sultan, the mother of Abd-ul-Mejid I (1839–1861).

In 1870, a contract was signed with a French company, Forges et Chantiers de la Mediteranée for construction of a third bridge, but the outbreak of war between France and Germany delayed the project, which was given instead to the British firm G. Wells in 1872.

It was built at a cost of 105,000 gold liras and was used until 1912 when it was towed upstream to replace the old Cisr-i Atik Bridge.

It is usually described as an important place for the development of modern Turkish rock music, due to it housing the influential bar Kemancı [tr].

Modern Turkish rock bands and singers such as Duman, MFÖ, Şebnem Ferah and Teoman have spent their formative years in Kemancı.

The Galata Bridge has long acted as a symbolic link between the old city of Istanbul, site of the imperial palace and principal religious and secular institutions of the Ottoman Empire, and the modern districts of Beyoğlu, where a large proportion of the inhabitants used to be non-Muslims and where foreign merchants and diplomats lived and worked.

As Peyami Safa wrote in his novel, Fatih-Harbiye, a person who went from Fatih to Harbiye via the bridge passed into a different civilisation and culture.

[8] The bridge also appears in Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando although it did not exist in the 16th century as the book suggests.