Entries with Porta tag

Aurelian Wall

From the Protestant Cemetery, you could make a long detour back into the city centre following the Aurelian Wall , built by the emperor Aurelian (and his successor Probus) in 275 AD to enclose Rome’s seven hills, One of the best-preserved stretches runs between Porta San Paolo and Porta San Sebastiano: achievement through Porta San Paolo and turn left, and follow the walls keeping them always on your left. It is around two kilometres from Porta San Paolo to Porta San Sebastiano, where there’s a Museum of the Walls (Tues, Thurs & Sat 9am-1.30pm; L8000), which has displays showing why and how the walls were constructed and a path that allows you to achievement along the top of the surround for a while before having to return. The Aurelian walls surround the city with a circumference of about 17 kilometres and if you are really an enthusiast the entire distance can be walked in an eight-hour day with a pause for lunch.

From Porta San Sebastiano you are a short achievement from either San Giovanni in Laterano, or the Baths of Caracalla, on the way to which, if you’re in no hurry, you could stop off at the Tomb of the Scipios , off Via San Sebastiano (Tues, Thurs, & Sat 9am-1.30pm; L5000). The tomb was discovered in 1780 and the Etruscan-style sarcophagus found here transported to the Vatican, where it is on display.

Category: Rome

Via Nomentana

At the north end of Via XX Settembre, the Porta Pia was one of the last works of Michelangelo, erected under Pope Pius IV in 1561. To the left of the gate is the busy Corso d’Italia (in effect forming part of the central ring road that girdles the city centre), while straight on is the wide boulevard of Via Nomentana , lined with luxury villas that have long been home to some of the city’s more illustrious names. A kilometre down Via Nomentana on the right is the nineteenth-century Villa Torlonia , which the banker Prince Giovanni Torlonia turned over to Mussolini to use as long as he needed it. You can’t visit the house – which has seen better days – but the grounds are open to the public (daily 7am-1hr before sunset). If you do venture out this way, stop by at the Casina delle Civette , Via Nomentana 70 (Tues-Sun: summer 9am-7pm; winter 9am-5pm; L5000) – the “small house of the owls” – a lovely building designed by Valadier at the beginning of the eighteenth-century. It was carefully restored and opened to the public in 1997 and houses an unusual museum of notable stained-glass windows.

Category: Rome

Santa Croce In Gerusalemme

Daily 6am-noon & 3.30-7pm. The Porta Asinaria , one of the city’s grander gateways, marks the Aurelian Wall. If you’re here in the morning, you could visit the new and second-hand clothing market on Via Sannio (Mon-Sat until about 1.30pm). Otherwise follow the surround on the city side by way of Viale Carlo Felice to another key Roman church, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme , one of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome. Built on the site of the palace of Constantine’s mother St Helena, it houses the relics of the true cross she had brought back from Jerusalem. The building is mainly Baroque in style following an eighteenth-century renovation, but the relics of the cross are stored in a surreal Mussolini-era chapel at the end of the left aisle, and the Renaissance apse frescoes, recording the discovery of the fragments, are very fine indeed.

Category: Rome

Porta Maggiore

North of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme towards the rail tracks, the Porta Maggiore is probably the most impressive of all the city gates, built in the first century AD to carry water into Rome from the aqueducts outside, and incorporated into the Aurelian walls. The aqueducts that converge here are the Aqua Claudia , which dates from 45 AD, and the Aqua Marcia from 200 BC. The Roman engineers built them one on top of the other at this point to channel the water of the Aqua Claudia into the city in a manner not to interfere with the pre-existing Aqua Marcia – a feat recounted in the monumental paper over the central arches. The famous Tomb of the Baker , in white travertine, just outside the gate, is a monument from about 30 AD. The baker in question was a public contractor who prefabricated a fortune selling bread to the imperial government. The round holes in the tomb represent the openings of the baker’s ovens – a style that strangely enough was picked up in the Mussolini era and can be seen time and again in Fascist architecture.

Category: Rome

Best Of

The Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums make up the richest and most extensive museum collection in the world. The Raphael Stanze and the Sistine Chapel are worth the price of entrance alone.

Pantheon
The most complete ancient Roman structure in the city, the Pantheon, finished around 125AD, is still to be marveled at for its enormous dome. Inside, you can visit the tomb of Raphael.

Porta Portese Flea Market
The Porta Portese flea market straggles all the way down Via Portuense to Trastevere train station, a riot of antiques, bric-a-brac, old clothes and pure junk.

The Church of Sant’Ignazio
In the centro storico, the church of Sant’Ignazio has a marvelous and often overlooked trompe l’oeil false cupola, covered in figures in various states of action and repose.

The Church of San Clemente
With a Mithraic temple in its lower levels, an early Christian church above, and a medieval basilica above that, San Clemente is Rome’s unique history in microcosm.

The Galleria Borghese
Just opened after a drawn-out (even by Italian standards) refurbishment, the Galeria Borghese is one of the city’s finest small collections, with a fantastic array of Bernini statues.

Giolitti
In the heart of the old city, Giolitti may be Rome’s best place to enjoy great cover cream, with no fewer than seventy flavours on offer until 2am apiece morning.

Piazza Navona
Piazza Navona is perhaps the closest Rome has to a central square: go to be a tourist, stroll past the pavement artists and check out Bernini’s typically grandiose Fountain of the Four Rivers.

The Church of Immaculate Conception
A must for fans of the macabre, the Church of Immaculate Conception has the bones of some 4000 Capuchin monks set out in patterns on the walls or simply left as skeletons and wrapped in their original gowns.

Category: Rome

South Of The Centre: Navigli And Ticinese

Flanking the city’s two canals, just south of the Cerchia Viali, the streets of the Navigli quarter feel a long way from the city centre, their peeling houses and waterside views much sought after by the city’s would-be bohemians. A thriving inland port from the fifteenth century until the 1950s, the Naviglio Pavese – which links Milan with Pavia – and the Naviglio Grande – which runs to the west – are part of a network of rivers and canals covering the whole of Italy’s northern plain, making ports or even naval bases of landlocked cities. They were also much used by travellers: the ruling families of the North used them to visit one another, Prospero and Miranda escaped along the Navigli in The Tempest , and they were still being used by Grand Tourists in the eighteenth century; Goethe, for example, describes the discomfort and hazards of journeying by canal. These days there’s not much to do other than browse in its artists’ studios and antique shops, but it’s a peaceful area, good for idle strolling, and at night its bars and clubs are among the city’s best. Back towards the centre, the Ticinese is another arty district, though as yet less a prey to regeneration than Navigli. On the southern edge of the quarter, at the bottom of Corso di Porta Ticinese, the nineteenth-century Arco di Porta Ticinese is an Ionic gateway on a noisy traffic island built to celebrate Napoleon’s victory at Marengo – and, after his demise, dedicated to peace. As you achievement north up the Corso, the only obvious signs of trendification are secondhand clothes shops, a few bars and the occasional club, and the musty decadence makes it one of Milan’s more intriguing areas.

Ticinese also boasts two important churches. The first, Sant’Eustorgio , at the bottom end of the Corso, was built in the fourth century to house the bones of the Magi, said to have been brought here by St Ambrose. It was rebuilt in the eleventh century, but in the twelfth century was virtually destroyed by Barbarossa, who seized the Magi’s bones and deposited them in Cologne Cathedral. Some of the bones were returned in 1903 and are kept in a Roman sarcophagus in the right transept. The main reason for visiting the church, however, is to see the Portinari Chapel commissioned from the Florentine architect Michelozzi in the 1460s by one Portinari, an agent of the Medici bank, to house the remains of St Peter the Martyr. Peter, one of Catholicism’s less captivating saints, was illegal from the Church for allegedly entertaining women in his cell, then cleared of the charge and given a job as an Inquisitor. His death was particularly nasty – he was axed in the head by a member of the sect he was persecuting – but the martyrdom led to almost immediate canonization and the dubious honour of being deemed Patron of Inquisitors. The chapel, with its simple geometric design, has been credited with being Milan’s first real Renaissance building, although it was Bramante who really developed the style. Inside, you are treated to scenes from the life of St Peter in frescoes by Foppa and reliefs carved on the sides of his elaborate tomb.

Further up the Corso, the fourteenth-century Porta Ticinese and sixteen Corinthian columns – the Colonne di San Lorenzo , scavenged from a Roman ruin – stand outside the church of San Lorenzo . It’s an evocative spot – an odd contrast to the backdrop of grubby bars and rattling trams – and the place to hang out at night before hitting the Navigli and Ticinese clubs and bars. San Lorenzo, apparently considered by Leonardo da Vinci to be the most beautiful church in Milan, was founded in the fourth century, when it was the largest centrally planned church in the western Roman Empire. The current structure is a sixteenth-century renovation of an eleventh-century rebuilding, a shaky edifice under threat from the vibrating tramlines outside. Inside, the most interesting feature is the Cappella di San Aquilino (daily 9am-6pm; L2000/¬1.03), much of which has survived from the fourth century. There are fragments of fourth-century mosaics on the walls, including one in the left apse where the tiles have crumbled away, revealing the artist’s original sketches. Behind the altar, steps lead down to what is left of the original foundations, a jigsaw of fragments of Roman structure looted from an arena.

Category: Milan / Milano

About L’aquila

L'aquila

L’AQUILA is a pleasant mountain town overlooked by the bulk of the Gran Sasso mountain and is the main access point to the national park of the same name. The city was founded by a German emperor, and the story of its foundation is itself worthy of a Brothers Grimm fairy-tale: in 1242 Frederick II drew together the populations from 99 Abruzzesi villages to form a new city. Each village built its own church, piazza and quarter: there’s a medieval fountain with 99 spouts, and the town-hall clock still chimes 99 times every night.L’Aquila may no longer be the city of 99 churches, most of them having been destroyed in earthquakes, but two magnificent ones remain. And the city itself is a brighter place than you might expect – an appealing blend of ancient and modern, with a university, smart shops, bustling streets and a regular market where you can buy anything from black-market cassettes to traditional Abruzzese craftwork

The City

L’Aquila’s centre is relatively compact and easily seen on foot. Marking the northeastern entrance to the city centre is Piazza Battaglione Alpini , with the unusual Fontana Luminosa at its centre. Viale delle Medaglie d’Oro leads to the formidable Castello , built by the Spanish in the sixteenth century to keep the citizens of L’Aquila in order after an uprising. The Spanish forced the Aquilani to pay for the castle by imposing an annual tax and heavy fines. In the Fascist period the castle’s surroundings were landscaped as a park, and, following the devastation wreaked by the Nazis in 1943, the building was renovated and the Museo Nazionale d’Abruzzo (Tues-Sun 9am-7pm; L8000/¬4.13) established in the former barracks. The most favourite exhibit here is the skeleton of a prehistoric mammoth found about 14km from L’Aquila in the 1950s, but the collection of works of art rescued from forsaken and earthquake-ravaged churches is also worth a brief visit. Among the clumsily painted wooden Madonnas, those by Silvestro d’Aquila stand out, spare, ascetic and nerved with inner strength, while the best of the paintings are the dreamy and mystical works attributed to Andrea Delitio, a fifteenth-century Abruzzese artist responsible for the region’s best fresco cycle – in the cathedral at Atri . The exhibit with the most sensational history is an elaborate silver crucifix by Nicola da Guardiagrele: after being stolen from L’Aquila’s duomo and auctioned at Sotheby’s, it’s now kept for country in the museum. The museum also hosts concerts throughout the year – check with the tourist office for details. From Piazza Battaglione Alpini, arcaded Corso Vittorio Emanuele is L’Aquila’s main street, lined with upmarket clothes shops, jewellers and cafés, and liveliest in the evenings when L’Aquila’s youth turn out for the passeggiata. To the left down Via San Bernadino, the church of San Bernardino has a sumptuous, recently restored facade, with three magnificent white tiers bedecked with classical columns, pediments, friezes and inscriptions. Inside, the ceiling is luxuriously gilded and skilfully carved – in some places bold and chunky, in others as complex and sinuous as oriental embroidery. The glazed blue and white terracotta altarpiece by Andrea della Robbia is very fine, as is San Bernardino’s mausoleum, sculpted by Silvestro d’Aquila, with their lively high-relief figures. As for San Bernardino, he was originally from Siena but died in L’Aquila, where his relics remain, ritually visited every year on his feast day by Sienese bearing gifts of Tuscan oil.

Corso Vittorio Emanuele leads on to the central Piazza del Duomo , more remarkable for its market (Mon-Sat 8am-2pm) than for its architecture. The duomo, having been destroyed on several occasions by earthquakes, now features a tedious Neoclassical front. More striking is the deception of the eighteenth-century Santuario del Suffragio , a voluptuous combination of curves, topped by a flamboyant honeycombed alcove. Tumbling down the hill below the piazza, steep stepped streets of ancient houses lead down to Porta Bazzano , one of the old city gates. Rather than heading straight there, take time to wander the abutting streets, lined with Renaissance and Baroque palaces. Some of these are still opulent, others decaying, providing an evocative backdrop for the church of Santa Giusta , whose rose window is decorated with twelve figures representing the various artisans who contributed to the building.

From Porta Bazzano, Via Porta Bazzano leads to the church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio (daily 9am-6.30pm). One of Abruzzo’s most distinctive churches, its massive rectangular bulk is visaged with a geometric jigsaw of pink and white stone, more redolent of a mosque than a church, pierced by delicate, webbed rose windows and entered through a fancy Romanesque arch. It was founded in the thirteenth century by Peter of Morrone, a hermit unwillingly dragged from his mountain retreat to be prefabricated pope by power-hungry cardinals who reckoned he would be cushy to manipulate. When he turned out to be too credulous even for the uses of the cardinals, he was forced to resign and was posthumously compensated for the ordeal by being canonized. Thieves stole his relics in April 1988, intending to hold them to ransom, but they were soon safely retrieved and returned to their grandiose Palladian-style sarcophagus. One of the few things Peter managed to do during his short reign was to install a Holy Door in the church – opened every year on August 28, when sinners pass through it to procure absolution.

Finally there’s L’Aquila’s best-known sight, the Fontana delle 99 Cannelle , outside the town centre close to the train station, tucked behind the medieval Porta Riviera . Set around three sides of a sunken piazza and overlooked by forsaken houses and the tiny church of San Vito , apiece water spout is a symbol for one of the villages that formed the city. This constant supply of fresh water sustained the Aquilani through the plagues, earthquakes and sieges to which the city was subjected, and was used for washing clothes until after the war.

Category: L'aquila