Porta San Gervasio, Medieval gate in Lucca, Italy.
Porta San Gervasio is a gate of Lucca's 13th-century walls, completed in 1255. Its round-arched passage is about eight metres high, flanked by two cylindrical towers of grey sandstone with white limestone detailing. The upper central block is plastered, with two small and two larger square windows and a niche holding a shield. The towers now serve as private homes.
Construction of this gate was completed in 1255 as one of four main entrances through Lucca's medieval walls. The structure underwent partial demolition during Renaissance modifications to the city's defenses but survived as a notable reminder of that era.
The inner lunette holds a painted fresco, not a carving: a Madonna and Child with two kneeling saints, two angels drawing back curtains and a fragment of the infant Saint John. The Madonna and Child are about a century older than the repainting, probably of the 17th century. Red stars on a white ground are painted in tempera under the arch.
The gate is easily accessible from Via del Fosso, where you can see the preserved remains of the moat system around the structure. Note that the two towers flanking the gate now serve as private residences and are not open to visitors.
The two towers are now private homes. Italo Meschi (1887–1957), a guitarist, poet and pacifist anarchist, lived for years at the top of the left tower as seen from Via del Fosso; his cousin, the painter Alfredo Meschi (1905–1981), kept his studio at the top of the right one.
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