Porta Pia (Piazzale di Porta Pia, Rome, on Via Nomentana at the point where it exits the Aurelian Wall, 2km northeast of the Termini station) is the gate that Michelangelo Buonarroti designed in 1561 as his last major architectural project (he died in 1564, three years after receiving the commission from Pope Pius IV, hence "Pia", and the gate was completed in modified form after his death by Giacomo del Duca in 1565) and that Italian nationalist history has fixed as the symbolic endpoint of the Risorgimento: the Breccia di Porta Pia (the "breach of Porta Pia", the cannon hole that the Italian army's Bersaglieri opened in the Aurelian Wall beside the Porta Pia gate on September 20, 1870, at 9:17 in the morning, allowing the Italian troops to enter Rome and end the millennium-long temporal power of the papacy over central Italy) is the specific historical moment that Italian secular nationalism celebrates as the completion of Italian unification and that the Vatican and Italian Catholics historically mourned as the "Capture of Rome."
The September 20 political charge: in 2026, the Breccia di Porta Pia remains one of the most politically sensitive dates in the Italian calendar, the day that the Italian secular tradition celebrates as the liberation of Rome from theocratic government and that the Catholic tradition treats with varying degrees of discomfort, depending on the specific Italian political moment. The current Italian government's (as of April 2026) relationship to the September 20 commemoration reflects the broader ambiguity in Italian political culture about the Risorgimento's relationship to Catholicism.
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Porta Pia: Architecture, History, and Visit
Michelangelo's Design
The Porta Pia architectural character: the specific Michelangelo design (the elaborate broken pediment above the central arch, the festoon decoration of the frieze, and the specific combination of the classical architectural vocabulary with the mannered distortion that the late Michelangelo applied to every medium, the same formal tension visible in the Laurentian Library vestibule and in the Rondanini Pietà is present in the Porta Pia's deliberately "wrong" architectural details). The gate as built (the 1565 Giacomo del Duca construction) departs from the Michelangelo drawings in several respects, the specific comparison between the surviving Michelangelo designs (preserved in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence) and the built gate reveals the specific modifications that del Duca introduced. The Aurelian Wall (the 3rd-century AD defensive wall built between 271 and 275 AD under Aurelian, the wall that still encloses the historic center of Rome, the only surviving complete ancient urban defensive circuit in Europe) at the Porta Pia section: the wall height and the preserved crenellations visible on both sides of the gate.
Porta Pia: tours & tickets
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See availability & prices →Compare tours on Viator →We may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.The 1870 Breach
The Breccia di Porta Pia (the breach made by the Italian army artillery on the morning of September 20, 1870): the specific breach location (the wall section approximately 50m east of the Porta Pia gate, a plaque marks the exact point of the breach in the current wall section visible on Via Nomentana side). The cannon hole (sealed and marked, the commemorative plaque on the wall recording the specific time of 9:17 and the specific unit (the 12th Infantry Regiment) that first entered through the breach). The Museo del Risorgimento (the museum in the Porta Pia itself, the small museum inside the gate structure, open Tuesday-Sunday 9:00-13:00, free admission, covering the 1870 campaign and the Risorgimento context).
Q&A: Porta Pia
Can I visit the inside of Porta Pia?
Yes, the Museo Storico dei Bersaglieri (the Bersaglieri military museum inside and adjacent to the Porta Pia, the museum of the specific Italian infantry corps that executed the September 20 breach, housed in the Caserma dei Bersaglieri on Via Nomentana side of the gate. Open Tuesday-Sunday 9:00-13:00, free admission) provides the most complete documentation of the 1870 Breccia di Porta Pia in any accessible museum space and is also a broader museum of Italian military history from the Risorgimento to the present.
Internal Links
- Risorgimento: Porta Pia nel Contesto
- Roma Politica: Dalla Breccia al Fascismo
- Mura Aureliane: La Difesa della Roma Antica
- Museo Bersaglieri: Ingresso Gratuito
- Fotografare Porta Pia: Architettura e Storia
- Roma in Settembre: Il 20 Settembre alla Porta Pia
- Michelangelo Architetto: Da San Pietro a Porta Pia
