Porta Borsari site features

Porta Borsari appears as a narrow, 13-metre-high wall of pale limestone spanning Corso Porta Borsari. Two broad arches open at street level. Above them, two storeys of smaller arched windows are organised by pilasters, cornices and projecting frames.

The façade is more layered than it first appears. Deep arch mouldings, small pediment-like forms and alternating projections create shadows across the white stone. Traces of the Gallienus inscription remain over the lower openings, although they are easier to understand with the text identified in advance.

This is the outer, countryside-facing side of the Roman gate. The building once extended behind it as a rectangular gatehouse with a central court, a second façade and paired passages. With those volumes gone, the surviving frontage now reads like a monumental screen embedded in the modern street.

The two passages

Late 1st century B.C. The paired arches preserve the line of the original route through a gatehouse that once extended behind the façade. Passing beneath them follows the Via Postumia into the Roman street grid.

The white-limestone frontage

Mid-1st century A.D. The outer face added a monumental stone composition to the earlier brick structure. Look for the layered frames around the arches and the two storeys of openings above them.

The Gallienus inscription

265 A.D. Traces of the text survive above the arches. It records repairs and enlargement of Verona's walls and gives the campaign's start and end dates, from 3 April to 4 December.

The Roman street line

The street continues east from the gate along the former decumanus maximus. This surviving alignment explains the monument more clearly than viewing it as an isolated architectural screen.