Porta San Michele

Porta San Michele, already called Porta d’Arco, as it is located in the direction of the other important town. The gate is so called in the ancient statutes of 1274 and in the estimates of the fifteenth century. It takes its current name from the church of San Michele, not far away, home to an important city brotherhood.

In the following centuries it remained closed for a long time during the years of plague. Reopened in 1796 with the construction of the ‘via retta’, now via Roma. Via Roma which connected the historic center with the Inviolata church. It was the subject of a profound restoration by the mayor Luigi Antonio Baruffaldi in 1862. He had all the elevations, the bell tower and the staircase demolished. Subsequently he had the tower, the battlements and a small arched door rebuilt. The second opening is more recent. The grafts of the new nineteenth-century interventions on the remaining ancient structure are clearly visible.