Description
Porta Leoni is one of the gates of Verona's Roman walls, on Via Leoni. What remains is a white stone front from imperial times and an older one in brick, one in front of the other: two eras of the same gate in a single glance.
The thing to look at is the front facing the city, in white stone from the Valpantena, added in imperial times. On the lower level is an arch framed by two Corinthian half-columns, a pediment and an entablature. At the middle level the windows are barely marked in light relief. At the top opens a slender exedra between thin twisted columns.
Behind this facade, set back a little more than half a meter, is the Republican one in brick. Beneath Via Leoni excavations have brought more remains to light, and the gate can be reconstructed: a small square fortress 16.70 meters on each side, with an inner courtyard where travelers stopped and were checked.
Toward the countryside there were two tall polygonal towers with sixteen sides, 7.40 meters in diameter. The galleries on the upper floors led to the crenellated walkway of the walls. The building reached a height of about 13 meters.
On the central pier is an inscription that is considered the birth certificate of Roman Verona: it lists the names of the quattuorviri who had the walls, gates, towers and sewers of the city built. It was found during restoration work in 1965, although some Renaissance artists had already noticed it.
The gate's ancient name is not known. In the Middle Ages it was Porta San Fermo, after the nearby church, and later Arco di Valerio, from the name of a supposed builder.
Today's name comes from the street. Already in the 1500s it was called "via de' Leoni," because the upper part of a Roman funerary monument with two lions on either side was kept there, perhaps from the burial area beyond the gate.
It was born with the walls in the second half of the first century BC, when Verona moved inside the bend of the Adige. In the Middle Ages it was already mutilated and partly inside a house. It inspired the Renaissance: Giovanni Caroto, Sebastiano Serlio and Andrea Palladio drew it.
The thing to look at is the front facing the city, in white stone from the Valpantena, added in imperial times. On the lower level is an arch framed by two Corinthian half-columns, a pediment and an entablature. At the middle level the windows are barely marked in light relief. At the top opens a slender exedra between thin twisted columns.
Behind this facade, set back a little more than half a meter, is the Republican one in brick. Beneath Via Leoni excavations have brought more remains to light, and the gate can be reconstructed: a small square fortress 16.70 meters on each side, with an inner courtyard where travelers stopped and were checked.
Toward the countryside there were two tall polygonal towers with sixteen sides, 7.40 meters in diameter. The galleries on the upper floors led to the crenellated walkway of the walls. The building reached a height of about 13 meters.
On the central pier is an inscription that is considered the birth certificate of Roman Verona: it lists the names of the quattuorviri who had the walls, gates, towers and sewers of the city built. It was found during restoration work in 1965, although some Renaissance artists had already noticed it.
The gate's ancient name is not known. In the Middle Ages it was Porta San Fermo, after the nearby church, and later Arco di Valerio, from the name of a supposed builder.
Today's name comes from the street. Already in the 1500s it was called "via de' Leoni," because the upper part of a Roman funerary monument with two lions on either side was kept there, perhaps from the burial area beyond the gate.
It was born with the walls in the second half of the first century BC, when Verona moved inside the bend of the Adige. In the Middle Ages it was already mutilated and partly inside a house. It inspired the Renaissance: Giovanni Caroto, Sebastiano Serlio and Andrea Palladio drew it.