Description
The Porta Palatina is the ancient north gate of Roman Turin, on the edge of Piazza Cesare Augusto: two sixteen-sided towers and a red-brick facade with four openings. It is the main archaeological evidence of Roman Turin and one of the best-preserved gates of the 1st century BC.
The two towers, more than thirty meters high, have a square base and a sixteen-sided body. Only the right-hand tower and the central section are Roman: the other was rebuilt in 1404, along with the battlements of a medieval fortress.
The facade has two large passages for carts and two smaller ones for pedestrians, with rows of arched windows above. Behind it was a square courtyard, now reduced to remains, where those entering the city would stop.
In front of the gate a piece of Roman paving survives, with the ruts left by cart wheels. The statues of Augustus and Julius Caesar are bronze copies dating from the 1934 restoration.
Next to the gate you can visit the remains of the Roman theater and the archaeological park, opened in 2006: this is where, two thousand years ago, anyone arriving from Milan or Pavia entered the city.
The name Palatina came after the Romans and comes from Porta Palatii, perhaps because of its closeness to the palace of the Lombard kings. In the 11th century the gate was turned into a fortress and in the Middle Ages it was also called Porta Doranea, after the Dora river.
In the 18th century, the renewal of the city planned by Victor Amadeus II called for demolishing it. It was saved by the engineer Antonio Bertola, who convinced the duke to keep it: from then on the towers served as a prison and as a women's penitentiary.
At the start of the 20th century Alfredo d'Andrade freed it of the additions of the centuries, and a new restoration followed between 1934 and 1938. Until the 1970s, cars still drove through the openings.
The two towers, more than thirty meters high, have a square base and a sixteen-sided body. Only the right-hand tower and the central section are Roman: the other was rebuilt in 1404, along with the battlements of a medieval fortress.
The facade has two large passages for carts and two smaller ones for pedestrians, with rows of arched windows above. Behind it was a square courtyard, now reduced to remains, where those entering the city would stop.
In front of the gate a piece of Roman paving survives, with the ruts left by cart wheels. The statues of Augustus and Julius Caesar are bronze copies dating from the 1934 restoration.
Next to the gate you can visit the remains of the Roman theater and the archaeological park, opened in 2006: this is where, two thousand years ago, anyone arriving from Milan or Pavia entered the city.
The name Palatina came after the Romans and comes from Porta Palatii, perhaps because of its closeness to the palace of the Lombard kings. In the 11th century the gate was turned into a fortress and in the Middle Ages it was also called Porta Doranea, after the Dora river.
In the 18th century, the renewal of the city planned by Victor Amadeus II called for demolishing it. It was saved by the engineer Antonio Bertola, who convinced the duke to keep it: from then on the towers served as a prison and as a women's penitentiary.
At the start of the 20th century Alfredo d'Andrade freed it of the additions of the centuries, and a new restoration followed between 1934 and 1938. Until the 1970s, cars still drove through the openings.