Discover Porta Santa Maria

Porta Santa Maria is the gate at the end of the footbridge, and the way everyone enters Civita. Two carved lions flank the arch, each holding a human head between its paws, and the heads are the point: they commemorate a popular revolt by the people of Civita against the Monaldeschi, the Orvieto family who held the place.

The gate into Civita is cut through the tufa under a tower with a small arcaded loggia at the top. The two lions are dated to 1497 and the eagle with its carved head to around 1550, so the sculpture was added over roughly half a century rather than at once.

It is the last of five, and the only one that is both a monument and the working front door. Inside it the street plan is Etruscan in origin -- cardi and decumani, inherited by Rome -- under an architectural dress that is medieval and Renaissance throughout. Cutting a passage rather than building one is the normal method here: the chamber tombs, the cisterns and the Bucaione tunnel through the lowest part of the village are all made by removing rock.

The gate is cut, not built. The passage goes through the tufa under a tower, which is the same technique the town's chamber tombs, its tunnel and its cisterns use -- in Civita the ordinary way to make a space is to remove rock.

The sculpture went up in two campaigns. The lions are dated to 1497 and the eagle with its carved head to about 1550. Roughly half a century separates them, so what reads as a single programme over the arch was assembled piece by piece.

And it commemorates a defeat inflicted, not suffered. The human heads between the lions' paws record a popular revolt by the inhabitants of Civita against the Monaldeschi, the Orvieto family who held the place. A town of this size putting that over its main gate is a statement about who it answered to.

Four sibling gates are gone. The ancient settlement had five, and erosion and landslide have left one. Many chamber tombs cut at the base of Civita's cliff and the neighbouring tufa walls have been swallowed the same way over the centuries -- the base layer is a marine clay especially prone to erosion, the upper layers tufaceous and lavic, and the rate is driven by torrents, weather and historic deforestation.

The engineering answer is ancient. After the tremors and landslips of 280 BC the Etruscans embanked rivers and cut drainage channels so the water would run off properly; the Romans, arriving in 265 BC, continued the canalisation and torrent containment on an imposing scale. Once neglected, the works stopped protecting anything, and the degradation that followed is what finally emptied Civita.

Why do the lions have heads between their paws?

They commemorate a popular revolt by the people of Civita against the Monaldeschi, the Orvieto family who held the town.

How old is the carving?

The two lions are dated to 1497 and the eagle with its carved head to around 1550, so the sculpture over the arch was added across roughly half a century.

Is this the only gate?

Now, yes. The ancient settlement was entered by five gates and the Porta di Santa Maria -- also called della Cava -- is the only one remaining, and the main access. A tunnel cut in the rock, the Bucaione, is the one other way through, climbing from the Valle dei Calanchi into the lowest part of the village.

Do I pay to walk through it?

Yes -- not for the gate itself, but for access to the borgo, chargeable since June 2013 at 5 euros a head. A long list of exemptions is published, including under-6s, residents, licensed guides and journalists.

What is above the arch?

The gate is cut through the tufa under a tower with a small arcaded loggia at the top.

What is inside?

An Etruscan street grid of cardi and decumani under medieval and Renaissance buildings: the church of San Donato and the old communal palace on the main square, Palazzo Alemanni with the Museo Geologico e delle Frane, the Palazzo Vescovile, a sixteenth-century mill and the remains of St Bonaventure's birthplace.

How do I reach the gate?

On foot across the reinforced-concrete footbridge of 1965. From Piazzale Battaglini the walk is about 15 minutes, or a shuttle runs to the Belvedere.