Porta Pia (monument)
Porta Pia is one of the northern gates in the Aurelian Walls of Rome, and it carries a very personal story: it’s named after Pope Pius IV, whose civic improvements helped give Rome this new passage. The city needed a replacement for the Porta Nomentana, since a new urban area meant the old route couldn’t serve the Via Nomentana anymore. Michelangelo designed Porta Pia to sit at the end of a new street—the Via Pia—and construction started in 1561. Work ran until 1565, after Michelangelo had died, making it his last architectural project. Even the early imagination of the gate survives: a 1561 bronze commemorative medal by Gian Federico Bonzagna shows an initial plan that looks quite different from what you see today. Over a century later, the outside façade was completed in 1869 under a Neo-Classical design by Virginio Vespignani. …
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