Porta Leoni Archeological Site Site Features

The surviving fragment shows the gate's inner face in section: part of an arched opening, a fluted column, a section of the aedicule storey above, and the ragged edge where the rest was cut away.

The white limestone of the first-century AD refacing is visible over the earlier brick and tuff of the republican gate beneath -- two building campaigns in one wall face, which is unusually legible.

The upper part carries a fragment of the same aedicule arrangement as Porta Borsari: small arched openings between columns.

In the excavation beside it lie the foundations of the earlier gate, part of a tower, and the Roman paving of the cardo -- showing how far the modern street has risen above the ancient one, which is several metres.

The later building is grafted straight onto it, plaster meeting Roman stone with no ceremony at all.

The gate in cross-section

Half a Roman gate embedded in a later facade, cut vertically so its construction is visible from the street. There is nothing else quite like it in the city.

The open excavation

Below pavement level beside it: the republican gate's foundations and the Roman street, several metres down, visible through a railing at any hour.

Two gates in one wall

First-century BC brick and tuff below, first-century AD white limestone above -- the rebuild sitting directly on its predecessor.

The street level

The clearest demonstration in Verona of how much the city has risen since antiquity.