Porta Leoni Archeological Site

Porta Leoni is the strangest Roman survival in Verona, because you do not see a gate. You see roughly half of one, sliced vertically and stuck into the side of a much later building on Via Leoni.

A medieval house was built against it and simply absorbed what it needed; the rest was cut away. The result is a Roman gate in cross-section, at eye level, in a residential street.

Beside it, an open excavation below pavement level shows the foundations of the earlier gate and the Roman street surface, several metres down. You look at it through a railing, for nothing.

Roughly half the gate survives, cut vertically and embedded in the flank of a later building, so there is no complete monument to photograph — what is here is a Roman gate in cross-section, which is more informative and much less immediately satisfying. The excavation sits in a sunken pit that is hard to read in low light and is not lit for viewing after dark. It is two minutes on the way to somewhere else, not a destination.

Nothing, for both halves. The sliced Roman gate embedded in the side of a later building is on a residential street, and the open excavation a few steps along is looked down into through a railing from the pavement. No ticket, no gate, no hours.

It is worth saying plainly because the word "archaeological site" in a name suggests an enclosure, a desk and a fee. There is none of that here: the Roman street surface several metres down is free to look at at three in the morning.

Porta Leoni is free and permanently visible from Via Leoni. There is nothing to enter, book or pay.

It is a five-minute walk south from Piazza delle Erbe, on the way toward the river.

Allow ten minutes. The excavation takes a moment to make sense of -- it helps to work out which masonry belongs to which century before moving on.

The street is level and accessible, and the excavation is viewed from the pavement.

It pairs naturally with Porta Borsari and the Arco dei Gavi as a short Roman circuit of the centre.

Both halves of this site are read from a residential street at pavement level, free and at any hour: the sliced Roman gate embedded in the side of a later building, and the open excavation a few steps along.

The excavation is below pavement level and you look down into it through a railing — there is no descent, which makes it one of the few archaeological sites in Verona with no steps involved at all^*. The cut face of the gate is at eye level on the street.

The gate is built into a private building and the street is residential. Look from the pavement, and do not enter doorways or courtyards.

Do not climb the railing or drop anything into the excavation. It is an open archaeological cutting, not a display case, and litter thrown in has to be removed by hand.

Do not touch the Roman stonework, which is unprotected and at hand height.

This is a working street rather than a monument zone; keep out of the flow while you look.