Porta Pia

Turismo Roma records that Porta Pia replaced the older Porta Nomentana between 1561 and 1565 and is one of the eighteen gates of the Aurelian Walls. Pope Pius IV gave the design to Michelangelo; it was among his last works of architecture, and after his death in 1564 the project passed to the architect Giacomo Del Duca. The Sovrintendenza Capitolina, describing the same gate, says instead that Michelangelo completed only the inner front and that the gate was finished in the 19th century by the architect Virginio Vespignani. Both are Roma Capitale bodies and the corpus reports both. Turismo Roma adds that the designs of the attic and of the outer facade toward Via Nomentana are 19th-century and unconnected to Michelangelo's project.

On 20 September 1870 the Breccia was opened in the walls a few tens of metres from the gate; a marble monument of 1920 and a commemorative column mark the event, and Turismo Roma says the marks of the fighting are still visible on the walls and on the gate itself. The Monumento al Bersagliere by the sculptor Publio Morbiducci was placed in the middle of the piazzale outside the gate in 1932. The gate itself has housed the Museo Storico dei Bersaglieri since 1932, which has its own entry here.