Porta Romana
Porta Romana is the ancient stone gateway that served as the primary entrance to the walled city of Florence, built in 1326. It becomes a critical obstacle for Robert Langdon and Sienna Brooks when the Italian military police set up a roadblock there, forcing the pair to find an alternative route into the old city through the Boboli Gardens.
History and Description
Florence was once a walled city, its primary entrance the stone gateway of the Porta Romana, built in 1326. While most of the city’s perimeter walls were destroyed centuries ago, the Porta Romana still exists, and to this day, traffic enters the city by funneling through deep arched tunnels in the colossal fortification. The gateway itself is a fifty-foot-tall barrier of ancient brick and stone whose primary passageway still retains its massive bolted wooden doors, which are propped open at all times to let traffic pass through. Six major roads converge in front of these doors, filtering into a rotary whose grassy median is dominated by a large Pistoletto statue depicting a woman departing the city gates carrying an enormous bundle on her head. Although nowadays it is more of a snarled traffic nightmare, Florence’s austere city gate was once the site of the Fiera dei Contratti—the Contracts Fair—at which fathers sold their daughters into a contracted marriage, often forcing them to dance provocatively in an effort to secure higher dowries.
The Roadblock
As Langdon and Sienna race toward the old city on a Trike, they see a long line of cars idling at a full stop in front of the Porta Romana. Traffic in the rotary has been halted by a police barricade, and more police cars are arriving. Armed officers are walking from car to car, asking questions. A sweaty cyclist comes pedaling toward them up the Viale Machiavelli away from the traffic, and when Sienna shouts out to him, he shouts back that the Carabinieri—the Italian military police—have set up a roadblock. Sirens wail in the distance behind them, and Sienna spins in her seat, staring back up the Viale Machiavelli, her face now masked with fear. They are trapped in the middle, with no intersecting road, park, or driveway in sight—only private residences on their left and a high stone wall to their right.
Escape via the Art Institute
Langdon spots a deserted construction site with a portable cement mixer that offers a little bit of cover, and Sienna guns the bike up onto the sidewalk and races into the work area. They hide behind a Porta-Potty, and as they crouch there, a group of art students from the Florence Art Institute—which is on the other side of the stone wall—passes by. Langdon seizes the opportunity, chasing after the students and asking for directions to the institute in broken Italian. He and Sienna merge with the group, slouching low to stay out of sight as they approach the police at the Porta Romana. When the group arrives at the Art Institute’s main gate, a loud screech of brakes echoes across the plaza as an all-too-familiar black van skids into the Porta Romana. Without a word, Langdon and Sienna seize the moment, slipping through the gate with their new friends. The entry road to the Istituto Statale d’Arte is startlingly beautiful, almost regal in appearance, with massive oak trees arching gently in from either side, creating a canopy that frames the distant building—a huge, faded yellow structure with a triple portico and an expansive oval lawn. This building, Langdon knows, had been commissioned by the Medici dynasty, which had dominated Florentine politics during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Originally built as the Medici’s primary horse stables, it had been transformed into the vibrant Art Institute. From there, Langdon and Sienna jump the wall into the Boboli Gardens, bypassing the Porta Romana undetected.
