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Porta Maggiore in Anguillara Sabazia: the gateway to the village from Lake Bracciano
Porta Maggiore, known by locals as "Porta di Castello" or "Arco di Piazza," is the gateway to the historic centre of Anguillara Sabazia, a town built on a promontory overlooking Lake Bracciano, just a few miles from Rome.
From the Anguillara walls to the Orsini fortifications
The gate was built around the 13th century as the town's first defensive structure, commissioned by the Anguillara family. The entire ring of walls began right from this arch. In the late 15th century, the Orsini family transformed it. Francesco di Giorgio Martini, a Sienese architect summoned to Bracciano by Gentil Virginio Orsini, added a drawbridge and a stone coat of arms — now worn away by time — above the arch, most likely depicting a bear eating an eel, the symbol of the family. The intervention was designed to enhance the entrance to the Baronial Palace, which stands just beyond the arch.
Embellishments and transformations from the 16th to the 19th century
In the 16th century, Giacomo del Duca, a Sicilian artist and pupil of Michelangelo, embellished the gate and removed the drawbridge. In the late 18th century the clock was installed, along with a staircase to reach it, with the addition of rusticated stonework on both façades and a wooden door within the arch. The windowed clock face was only added at the beginning of the 19th century; previously it had been on the bell tower of the Collegiate Church that dominates the village from above.
