Porta romana di Como

Beneath a school building at the southern edge of Como's old centre lies the grand entrance of the Roman city: a two-arched gate flanked by octagonal towers, raised when Novum Comum was refounded in the Caesarian era. Brought to light in 1914, it is a significant surviving fragment of Roman Como.

Why it matters

Roman Como was laid out as a colony on the north-south axis that still governs the modern street plan, and this gate was its southern mouth: the doorway through which everyone arriving from Milan and the Po valley entered the city before continuing north to the lake or along the via Regina. The structure preserves details that make ancient engineering tangible — cart ruts worn into a stone threshold, sockets for portcullis guides, a later pedestrian passage punched through a tower. The monument preserves an unusually legible history, from defensive gateway to decorated monumental front.

What to notice

The gate has two arched openings separated by a central pillar, flanked by two octagonal towers — a plan that announced the dignity of the colony to anyone approaching from the plain. Grooves worn by cartwheels remain in the threshold. The openings could be barred by portcullises lowered along guides in the side piers, while a later pedestrian passage was added inside the western tower. By the end of the second century the gate had lost its defensive role and was refaced with marble slabs and frames, elements of which survive; after the fall of the empire it was re-fortified and returned to military duty. Marble decoration removed from the gate is now kept in the city's archaeological museum.

Context and history

The gate opened at the centre of the southern side of the walls built when Novum Comum was refounded as a colony in the Caesarian era, between the mid-first century BC and the early first century AD. A stretch of those Caesarian walls remains visible in the courtyard of the Liceo Volta nearby. Excavations during construction of the Scuola Parini brought the gate to light in 1914. A restoration and interpretation project designed by architect Libero Cecchini for the municipality incorporated multimedia material on the gate's construction and excavation, the archaeology of Roman Como and Roman building techniques.