DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0477
460 PERUGIA.—The City. [chap. lvii.
The best preserved and the grandest of all the ancient
gates of Perugia is the
Aeco d' Augusto,
so called from the inscription, avgvsta pekvsia, over the
arch. It is formed of regular masonry of travertine,
uncemented, in courses eighteen inches high; some of the
blocks being three or four feet in length. The masonry of
the arch hardly corresponds with that below it, and is pro-
bably of subsequent date and Roman, as the inscription
seems to testify, though the letters are not necessarily
coeval with the structure. The arch is skew, or oblique ;
and the gate is double, like those of Volterra and Cosa.8
Above the arch is a frieze of six Ionic colonnettes, fluted,
alternating with shields; and from this springs another
arch, now blocked up, surmounted by a second frieze of
Ionic pilasters, not fluted. All the work above the lower
arch is evidently of later date than the original construc-
tion of the gateway.9 The entire height of the structure,
as it now stands, cannot be less than sixty or seventy feet.
This gate stands recessed from the line of the city-wall,
and is flanked on either hand by a tower, projecting about
twenty feet, and rising, narrowing upwards, to a level with
the top of the wall above the gate. The masonry of these
8 The gate is 14 feet 6 inches wide, been the keystone of the original arch,
20 feet 4 inches deep, and about 22 feet which the architects of the existing
from the ground to the spring of the structure did not choose to replace,
arch, the keystone of which will conse- This gate is sometimes called Arco della
quently be nearly 30 feet from the Via Vecchia.
ground. There are 17 voussoirs. The s Canina, Arch. Ant. VI. p. 55. He
moulding round it is very simple, not says that though there are no valid
unlike that of the Porta di Giove at documents to prove this gate older than
Fallen. In the spandrils there seems to the time of Augustus, to which the in-
have been on one side a massive head, scription would refer it, it is at least
now quite disfigured ; on the other a constructed in a manner similar to
projecting stone, though not in a corre- works of the most ancient times,
sponding position. This head may have
The best preserved and the grandest of all the ancient
gates of Perugia is the
Aeco d' Augusto,
so called from the inscription, avgvsta pekvsia, over the
arch. It is formed of regular masonry of travertine,
uncemented, in courses eighteen inches high; some of the
blocks being three or four feet in length. The masonry of
the arch hardly corresponds with that below it, and is pro-
bably of subsequent date and Roman, as the inscription
seems to testify, though the letters are not necessarily
coeval with the structure. The arch is skew, or oblique ;
and the gate is double, like those of Volterra and Cosa.8
Above the arch is a frieze of six Ionic colonnettes, fluted,
alternating with shields; and from this springs another
arch, now blocked up, surmounted by a second frieze of
Ionic pilasters, not fluted. All the work above the lower
arch is evidently of later date than the original construc-
tion of the gateway.9 The entire height of the structure,
as it now stands, cannot be less than sixty or seventy feet.
This gate stands recessed from the line of the city-wall,
and is flanked on either hand by a tower, projecting about
twenty feet, and rising, narrowing upwards, to a level with
the top of the wall above the gate. The masonry of these
8 The gate is 14 feet 6 inches wide, been the keystone of the original arch,
20 feet 4 inches deep, and about 22 feet which the architects of the existing
from the ground to the spring of the structure did not choose to replace,
arch, the keystone of which will conse- This gate is sometimes called Arco della
quently be nearly 30 feet from the Via Vecchia.
ground. There are 17 voussoirs. The s Canina, Arch. Ant. VI. p. 55. He
moulding round it is very simple, not says that though there are no valid
unlike that of the Porta di Giove at documents to prove this gate older than
Fallen. In the spandrils there seems to the time of Augustus, to which the in-
have been on one side a massive head, scription would refer it, it is at least
now quite disfigured ; on the other a constructed in a manner similar to
projecting stone, though not in a corre- works of the most ancient times,
sponding position. This head may have