Discover Arco dei Gavi

The Arco dei Gavi stands beside Castelvecchio in Verona, and two things about it are unusual.

First, it is a private monument. Roman arches were normally imperial; this one was raised in the first century AD by the gens Gavia, a wealthy Veronese family, for themselves.

Second, it is signed. The architect, a freedman named Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo, cut his name into it -- something very few Roman buildings anywhere carry.

What stands is also not where it stood. Napoleonic troops pulled it down in 1805; the stones were kept, and it was rebuilt here in 1932.

The arch is a single opening flanked by paired Corinthian columns on tall pedestals, with a heavy entablature and attic above.

It is comparatively small and restrained -- a family monument rather than a triumphal statement -- and its proportions are careful rather than overwhelming.

Niches in the piers once held statues of the Gavii, and inscriptions named them; the family put its own members where an emperor would have put himself.

The architect's signature, L. Vitruvius L. L. Cerdo architectus, is carved on the arch.

Beside it lies a stretch of Roman paving from the Via Postumia, with the ruts cut by cart wheels still visible in the stone -- moved here with the arch and, for many visitors, the more affecting object of the two.

A single opening, deliberately restrained. Paired Corinthian columns on tall pedestals flank one arch, under a heavy entablature and attic. It is small for a Roman arch, and the proportions are careful rather than overwhelming — the difference between a family commemorating itself and an emperor announcing a victory.

Signed work. L. Vitruvius L. L. Cerdo architectus is cut on the monument. Roman buildings are overwhelmingly anonymous; an architect who was also a freedman putting his name on a patrician family’s monument is worth the stop.

Reassembled, and honest about it. The 1932 reconstruction is anastylosis — the same method used on Ponte Pietra after the war. Original blocks were identified and returned to their positions, with new material only where nothing survived. What you are looking at is genuinely Roman stone in a genuinely twentieth-century assembly, on a site that is not the original one.

The road is still there. A stretch of Roman paving with visible wheel ruts is displayed beside it — the surface the arch was built to span.

Is it in its original place? No. It stood across the Via Postumia and was rebuilt in 1932 nearby, beside Castelvecchio, after being demolished in 1805.

Is the stone original? Largely yes — the blocks were kept after the demolition and returned to their positions, with new material used only where pieces were missing.

Is there anything to pay? No. It stands in the open on a public street, with no ticket and no hours.