Golden Gate (Diocletian's Palace)

Coordinates: 43°30′33″N 16°26′26″E / 43.50917°N 16.44056°E / 43.50917; 16.44056
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Golden Gate
Native name
Roman
Golden Gate (Diocletian's Palace) is located in Croatia
Golden Gate (Diocletian's Palace)

The Golden Gate (

Latin: Porta Aurea), or "the Northern Gate", is one of the four principal Roman gates into the stari grad (old town) of Split. Built as part of Diocletian's Palace, it served as the main gate through which the Emperor
entered the complex and was elaborately decorated to mark its status. Over the course of the Middle Ages, the gate was sealed off and lost its columns and statuary. It was reopened and repaired in modern times and now serves as a tourist attraction.

History

The gate stood at a terminal point of the road which led north towards

Venetian trade unions Died and Giustiniana.[3]

Amid the upheavals of the

Church of Our Lady of Zvonik
above the Iron Gate.

The sieges of the early Middle Ages prompted the town's inhabitants to close off the gate, using a smaller and more defensible passageway in its place. In more settled times, a new gate, the Door of Picture, permanently superseded the Golden Gate as the main entrance to the city on the north side.

In or around 1630, the Venetian governor Alvise Zorzi ordered the disassembly of eleven Roman towers on the north and east sides of the palace wall, sending the stone blocks to Venice to be used in the construction of Santa Maria della Salute. Among the casualties of this project were the two octagonal towers flanking the Golden Gate.[5] The gate was only re-opened in 1857,[3] in an undertaking which necessitated the demolition of houses which had been built up against the north wall of the palace. Much accumulated earth was cleared away, but around 2 meters of the gate and wall remain below ground level. The most recent reconstruction was carried out by the metropolis in the first years of the new millennium, with the gate covered in a building wrap from 2012 until 2015. As of 2020, the structure was open to the public.

Description

The Porta Septemtrionalis was the "main landward gate" of Diocletian's palace,[6] located in the middle of the northern wall. Its exterior opening measures 4.17 by 4.36 meters; above the lintel is a 3.02-meter-high arch composed of 19 stone blocks.[7] The double doors of the gate were set into this opening, which could also be closed by a portcullis.[8] Between the inner and outer openings of the gate is a courtyard (propugnaculum), once overseen by guard passageways built into its upper walls. The inner gate opens onto the Cardo Maximus, at whose opposite end is the Bronze Gate. Centuries of soil accumulation at the base of the wall have reduced the openings in the gate from 6.5 to fewer than 4.5 meters in height.[3]

Interior of The Church of Saint Martin with a view of the chancel screen (June 2013)

Set into the facade of the gate are five niches, two on each side of the central arch and one above. Four of these once housed statues of the Tetrarchs: Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus.[9] Modern restorers note that the fifth, central niche was made too shallow to hold a statue, to leave room for the portcullis to retract into the upper part of the gate. The same examination found no evidence of statues having stood in the other niches, and the restorers express doubt that the decoration of the gate was ever finished.[10]

The upper three niches are incorporated into a

Roman provinces, particularly Syria. He cites such "typically Syrian" features as the "combination of an open arch with a horizontal lintel [and] the bracketing out on consoles of [the] decorative arcade".[12]

The outer gate was defended by two

octagonal towers, since lost. The surface of each tower on the ground floor was about 60m, the inner diameter 8.53m, and the side 3.41 m. There were no corresponding structures on the inner face of the gate. The towers and their connecting walkways could be entered only through passages built into the palace wall and had no doorways on the ground floor.[13]

Gallery

  • Reconstruction of the 5th century Porta Aurea
    Reconstruction of the 5th century Porta Aurea
  • View of The Golden Gate ca. 1910, Photo by E. Hébrard and J. Zeiller, Spalato, le Palais de Dioclétien, Paris, 1912.
    View of The Golden Gate ca. 1910, Photo by E. Hébrard and J. Zeiller, Spalato, le Palais de Dioclétien, Paris, 1912.
  • The Porta Aurea, during cleaning and restoration 2007
    The Porta Aurea, during cleaning and restoration 2007

See also

References

  1. ^ "Zlatna vrata u Splitu".
  2. ^ Prijatelj 2005, p. 32.
  3. ^ a b c Prijatelj 2005, p. 33.
  4. ^ "Is Saint Martin the Narrowest Church You Have Ever Seen?".
  5. ^ Baras 2010, pp. 42–43.
  6. ISBN 0-8478-0972-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link
    )
  7. ^ Šušnjar 2003, pp. 71–72.
  8. ^
    S2CID 248519582
    .
  9. ^ Šušnjar 2003, p. 73.
  10. ISBN 978-3-11-091460-3
    .
  11. ISBN 978-1-84836-472-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link
    )
  12. ISBN 978-0-30005-292-3
    .
  13. ^ Šušnjar 2003, pp. 56–57.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Golden Gate, Split.
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