Mura di Ravenna

Ravenna's surviving walls, gates and towers preserve traces of several defensive systems. Roman origins, expansion during the city's imperial role and later medieval and Venetian works remain embedded in the urban landscape.

Why it matters

The defences reflect changes in Ravenna's political importance and relationship with the surrounding terrain. They are not a single continuous structure of one date: altered gates, surviving masonry and later street lines record successive phases of protection and urban growth.

What to notice

Porta Adriana, Porta Sisi and the remains associated with Porta Teguriense illustrate different parts of the historic enclosure. Towers and fragments incorporated into later buildings show how defensive structures acquired new uses. Rocca Brancaleone represents the larger military intervention of the Venetian period.

Context and history

The Roman enclosure was enlarged in late antiquity as Ravenna became an imperial capital. The medieval commune and the Da Polenta strengthened the defences, followed by Venetian works in the fifteenth century. Railway construction and other nineteenth-century changes removed parts of the circuit, leaving a discontinuous but historically layered system.