Porta Santa Maria site features

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 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.

What it is the last of

The ancient settlement had five gates and this is the only survivor, known also as the Porta della Cava. It opens onto a street plan that is Etruscan in origin -- cardi and decumani, inherited by Rome -- under an architectural dress that is medieval and Renaissance throughout. Inside, the main square carries the church of San Donato and the old communal palace; Palazzo Alemanni holds the Museo Geologico e delle Frane, and the Palazzo Vescovile, a sixteenth-century mill and the remains of the birthplace of St Bonaventure are all within a few minutes' walk.

There is one other way through the walls, from below: the Bucaione, a deep tunnel cut in the rock that incises the lowest part of the settlement and connects it to the Valle dei Calanchi.

The two lions and the heads

Each lion holds a human head between its paws, in memory of the popular revolt of Civita's inhabitants against the Monaldeschi of Orvieto. Dated to 1497.

The eagle

With its own carved head, dated to around 1550 -- half a century after the lions, so the programme over the arch was assembled in stages.

The arcaded loggia

A small arcaded loggia at the top of the tower the gate is cut through, above the passage everyone uses.

The last of five

The ancient settlement was entered by five gates, of which the Porta di Santa Maria -- or della Cava -- is the only one remaining. It is also the main access.

An Etruscan grid behind a Renaissance arch

The gate opens onto a plan of cardi and decumani laid out by the Etruscans in the sixth century BC and inherited by Rome, with everything visible above it medieval and Renaissance.

The Bucaione

The alternative: a deep tunnel cut in the rock through the lowest part of the village, giving onto the Valle dei Calanchi.