Porta Montanara: what to see and tips

Porta Montanara, once Porta Sant'Andrea, is a Roman arch of sandstone blocks from the 1st century BC, at the end of Via Garibaldi in Rimini. It marked the way out of town towards the hills and the Marecchia valley, and it has had a surprisingly eventful life.

What you see today is a single round arch, about three and a half metres wide and almost six high, with a double row of voussoirs. Originally there were two arches, one for those coming in and one for those going out, with a guard courtyard in front and a second, inner gate.

The spot where the demolished twin arch stood is marked in the paving of Via Garibaldi with flint cobbles, some forty metres further on towards Piazza Tre Martiri. It is worth looking for: it is the easiest way to picture the whole gate.

The gate was born after the civil war between Marius and Sulla, when Ariminum, which had sided against Sulla, was sacked and had to rebuild its defences. As early as the 1st or 2nd century AD the north-facing arch was walled up, and in the Middle Ages it ended up inside the cellars of the Malatesta family's houses.

It was right here, on 17 June 1528, that the papal troops marched in, ending Malatesta rule for good. In 1797 the French renamed it Montanara to strip it of the saint's name.

In the 19th century it was hated for the jams of carts it caused, and someone took a pickaxe to it before the town council had even decided. In 1944 a bombing raid gutted the building next door and revealed the walled-up arch, still intact. Soon afterwards the other arch was knocked down to let Allied tanks through.

The surviving arch then started travelling. In 1949 it was taken apart and rebuilt in the courtyard of the Tempio Malatestiano, then moved again in 1979 to a car park behind the apse. Only on 9 October 2004 did it return close to its original spot, at the start of the road to the Valmarecchia.