Porta Portese

The present gate was built in the 17th century to replace the ancient Porta Portuensis (from which it derives its modern name by deformation), one of the southern gates of the Aurelian Wall on the right bank of the Tiber. The gate, which originally had two fornixes and two circular towers, marked the beginning of the Via Portuensis. The Roman road was so named because it led to Porto (today’s Fiumicino), the urban agglomeration that arose north of Ostia between the ports of Claudius and Trajan.

In 1643, when Pope Urban VIII Barberini commissioned the architects Giulio Buratti and Marcantonio De Rossi to build the Mura Gianicolensi to extend the Leonine Walls and protect the Janiculum Hill, the ancient Roman gate was torn down and rebuilt using part of the ancient materials a hundred meters to the north. The work was completed as early as the following year: in the meantime, however, Urban VIII had died, so it was the next pope, Innocent X Pamphilj, who affixed his own coat of arms above the archway of the gate. The style of the gate deviates from traditional canons: majestic columns support a balustrade, and on either side of the fornix are two empty niches. Because of its proximity to the port of Ripa Grande, which was destroyed with the construction of the Tiber embankments, the gate had, after all, an essentially commercial function, as is also shown by the presence of the papal arsenal and duty house still visible toward the river

The name Porta Portese is linked to Rome’s most famous and popular flea market, which has been held every Sunday since the last postwar period in the space immediately outside the gate, along Via Portuense and in the immediate vicinity as far as Viale Trastevere.

Photo turismoroma