Along the Nuova Mura the access doors to the city were inserted. The original ridge was crossed, in various points, by "roads" from the suburbs, which descended to enter the city by means of the Doors in the wall built in the 1500s. With the construction of the new enclosure it wasn't (naturally) possible to maintain all these roads, so it was decided to "reunite" all of these into a single road. Where it crossed the enclosure, an entrance door was added. Each of these was thought up without a drawbridge, this was inserted, only in some cases, between the end of the 1700s and the beginning of the 1800s.

Starting from Fronti Basse, the first entrance was around the monumental Porta Pila (Pila Door). This was located at the intersection of Via XX Settembre, at the bus lane level along the axis of Via Fiume. According to some sources, the door, destined to the fortification of Porto Maurizio, was transported to Genoa by order of the Padri del Comune (Fathers of the Community) between 1647 and 1649. In 1891, during the demolition of the Fronti Bassi, the community decided to demolish the door as well, which was instead saved and moved in 1899, inserting it into the Montesano Bastion a site, which today no longer exists due to the expansion of the Brignole train station. Around 1940 it was newly dismantled and was moved to its current site, at the end of World War II. On its sides there are various commemorative plaques.

The following is Porta Romana (the Roman Door), with a more modest presence. It was situated at the entrance to Via San Vincenzo. It's name derives from the Roman road which, starting from Vico Dritto Ponticello (now the area of Piazza Dante) and Via San Vincenzo, went from the door towards Borgo Incrociati, now Via Torti and, today's Corso Gastaldi. The door was demolished in 1891.

Going up there is Porta San Bartolomeo (San Bartholemew Door), today hidden by the Genoa-Casella railway. It was the only one, in the city, which had a drawbridge with a spherical counterweight system to lift it (in the photo the system, the same as that of the door, is conserved in a fort in Savona). The door gets its name from the San Bartolomeo church (today in Corso Armellini), to which it lead. According to an antique Genoese tradition, during the Pentecostal period, after mass at the Church of San Bartolomeo degli Armeni the people, once past the door, headed towards the embankments (the area which is now occupied by the Genoa-Casella train station) to have lunch on the grass, eating the traditional omlette and wild herb salad. Around the end of the 1800s, the tradition of "mangià in sci terrapin" fell into disuse.

The next is the Porta San Bernardino, which gets its name from the nearby church. Up until 1896 it was closed between 21:00 and 04:30 hours. In October of 1942 it was hit by bombardments; up until then it had remained intact, even if the drawbridge and its closing system were blocked (the system was that same as that of the Sperone). From the Door, in the 1800s there originated Via delle Baracche, of which today's access goes back to the thirties.

Porta delle Chiappe or San Simone follows. According to popular tradition it is said that in 1346, Saint Brigida passed here and prophesized that one day Genoa would be reduced to a pile of ruins, and the pilgrims who passed by the mountains would pioint to the valley and say "Genoa was there". Up until 1898 the door was closed during the night. The name, according to some sources, derives from a chapel that was dedicated to the Saints Simone and Taddeo "protectores of the Genoese population", which was situated at the top of Salita San Simone.

On the Polcevera side there was Porta Sperone, situated inside the fort of the same name, it was born as a sortie but became a door with a mainly military scope along with the construction of the Diamante.

Near Via ai Piani di Fregoso we find Porta Granarolo, on which is a marble coat of arms. It originally had a drawbridge. From here the antique road from Begato passed, crossed the door and went down into today's Via Adua. The antique access way, at the beginning of the XX century, was substituted by today's road; the door was so left abandoned and the old road covered by junk and brushwood.

Porta degli Angeli, after that of Granarolo, gets its name from the Carmelite church which was demolished in 1810, and stood nearby.

From Sampierdarena, the first door one encountered was Porta della Lanterna, built between 1633 and 1643. In 1827 it was thought to demolish it: but istead a new door with a double barrel-vault, one hundred metres ahead and with the Savoy coat of arms, was built. The old door, because of its only entrance, was in a certain sense a hinderence. In 1877 its demolition was decreed. At the same time, a petition was issued which collected over ten thousand signatures, which asked for its conservation; even with this, in that same autumn, the demolition silently proceded. Of the monument there remains only the statue of the Madonna and the writing underneath POSUERUNT ME CUSTODEM (naturally they are conserved in two different places). As it often happens in Genoa, nobody has any regard for the monuments of the past. The Door of the 1800s had better luck, after the demolition of the San Benigno cliff, in 1930 it was demolished and placed under the Lanterna Tower.

  Others images

  Porta degli Angeli in 1920: note the above coat of arms, today it has unfortunatley disappeared.

  Porta delle Chiappe: the guards in 1903

  Porta delle Chiappe: image from 1968

  New Door of the Lanterna: its movement in October 1930

  Porta Granarolo: Internal prospective with its customs house in 1921

  Porta Granarolo: today's prospective of the preceding photograph

  Porta Granarolo: today

  Porta San Bartolomeo: today's image

  Port San Bartolomeo: the remains of the blocking chains of the counterweights

  Porta San Bernardino: a recent image

  Porta San Bernardino: towards the city in 1920

  Porta San Bernardino: in 1928

  Porta San Bernardino: in 1928: the drawbridge

  Porta Pila: in its original systemization: particular with its moat

  Porta Pila: in an image from 1896, after the demolition of Fronti Basse

  Porta Pila: right after the first movment to the Montesano Walls

  Porta Pila, englobed in the Montesano Wall: panorama from 1920

  Porta Pila: the last movement arount 1940

  Return to Summary