Mure e Porte

Walls and doors. Viterbo is a walled city as it has been probably as long as it has existed. The archeological evidence suggests the Etruscans had stone city walls back when they lived on this piece of land 2400+ years ago. If a place was going to survive it needed some way to defend itself. In the case of some of the hill towns we have visited, natural defenses were augmented by manmade ones. Even though Viterbo is sometimes referred to as being on a hill, I don't see it. In fact, much of Viterbo is a valley. The current walls date back to the 13th century although they have been repaired and reconstructed numerous times since then. The wall varies in height from 25 to 50+ feet tall. One would presume it must have been all roughly the same height at some point or that would provide natural weaknesses in the defensive capabilities. Where you have walls, you also have doors. Viterbo has 13 of these doors which serve as natural points of reference. The two main doors or gates are Porta Romana (Roman Door) and Porta Fiorentina (Florence Door).

We live near Porta Romana, pictured below from outside the city. The main opening is over 25 feet tall with huge, green-painted, wooden doors. Automobile traffice is allowed through Porta Romana, but only one way - into the city. To the right of the picture you see a tower. There is evidence of a second tower on the left. On the right there is also a much smaller, pedestrian door beside the main gate. Many buildings are built right into the town wall. The wall to the right of the pedestrian gate is actually part of the Church of San Sisto. Above the gate is a statue of Santa Rosa, patron saint of the city and the city coat of arms. These are shown in more detail in the second picture.

The next gate to the left empties out into the parking lot where we normally park our car. It is Porta Leonardo. From the pictures below it is easy to see that it is a pedestrian only door. The entrance itself is wrapped by the walls of yet another church.

If you go in the other direction from Porta Romana, you come to Porta della Verita, shown below. This has a wooden gate which is only 15 feet or so tall. There is two way traffic through this single lane gate which is controlled by stop lights. To the left of the gate is a pedestrian gate, the interior of which was featured in my post on shabby chic. Just inside this gate is the dairy store we go to. The fruit and vegetable store is around the corner from that.