Porta Santo Spirito, City gate in Rome, Italy

Porta Santo Spirito is a gate in the Leonine walls, set behind the Hospital of Santo Spirito on Via dei Penitenzieri near Piazza della Rovere. Its upper section is unfinished, with empty niches, and it stands beside the large Sangallo bastion. The gate was built around 850 under Pope Leo IV.

The gate dates to around 850, when it was built with the walls of Pope Leo IV as a secondary passage. It was called Porta Nuova in a document of 1409, was modified under Alexander VI, and around forty years later Paul III had it reworked with advice from Michelangelo and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. Michelangelo completed the work hastily after Sangallo's death.

The gate's name comes from the Hospital of Santo Spirito behind it, founded from the Schola Saxonum that King Ine of Wessex established after abdicating in 727. Pope Innocent III renamed the gate when the schola complex passed to the church and hospital. Look for the empty niches on the upper part, left unfinished.

The gate stands on Via dei Penitenzieri, at the corner with Piazza della Rovere, behind the Santo Spirito hospital. It is reached on foot from the Vatican along the Borgo, and the nearby Sangallo bastion partly blocks the view of the facade, so look for the empty niches to identify it.

The gate was originally known as Posterula Saxonum and was connected to the Schola Saxonum, a place founded by King Ine of Wessex for educating English clergy. This link reveals a surprising connection between Rome and early medieval English kingdoms.