PORTA ROMANA

DESCRIPTION

The visit to the village of Vitorchiano begins through piazzale Umnberto I. The large and airy square is the border between the new town and the old town. This is overlooked by a series of monuments that emphasize this interaction of spaces between the past and the present, between the ancient and the modern. Against the backdrop of the scenography of the square, placed in the center of the medieval walls with the towers of the fourteenth century, there is Porta Romana, the main gateway to the town. The door is characterized by a quadrilateral tower in peperino with an ashlar-worked arch, equipped with bertesche and slits and, at the top, with projecting grooved structural elements to support the battlements. The door has an empty internal front and is covered above by a barrel vault. in the past, the entrance to the village had to take place via a drawbridge, as the moat that separates the walls from the surrounding land suggests, now filled in the area adjacent to the entrance. The last known restoration dates back to 1625 as shown in Roman figures on the ashlars at the base of the arch MDCXXV. The latter is surmounted by the coat of arms of the city of Rome with the letters S. P. Q. R. The door is also referred to as the Upper door in reference to its position with respect to the other door dedicated to the Madonna della Neve, more internal and related to the first walls. The counter-façade of the tower is characterized by three levels: that of the access door with the round arch, a second level characterized by a mirror with an icon of the Virgin in the center within a shrine, and the third level, with the front empty interior, barrel vault and bertesca, from which, through a staircase, you reach the last level. A side staircase allows access to the first level, characterized by a balcony with railing, from which, through a door, you can reach the highest part of the tower. The icon of the Virgin is set in an aedicule with simple peperino columns, surmounted by a circular tympanum with the Marian coat of arms in the center. In the lower part, a small altar inscribed in the aedicule is surmounted by a peperino plaque with elongated corners, on which the words MATER PIETATIS 1769 are engraved. Above the image of the Virgin at the top, enclosed in a frame, are two rounds, one of which acts as a window, aligned with the access door and the quadrature.

ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

FERRO G., Le mura medievali di Vitorchiano, in “Le mura medievali del Lazio. Studi sull’area viterbese”, Roma 1993, pp. 61-75.

Special thanks to Dr. Andrea Presutti for scientific advice and archival photographic material provided on Vitorchiano.