Description
The Porta dei Greci is one of Palermo's ancient gates, on Piazza Kalsa, in the heart of the district, facing the Foro Italico. It once opened the city toward the port. Today it is absorbed into a building, but you can still recognize it from the sea side.
On the sea side the gate shows its raised rustication, which creates strong play of light and shade, and columns with capitals. Along the architrave run festoons of flowers and fruit, with reclining human figures. The inner side is almost bare of decoration.
Originally there were also an inscription and an armed eagle, the city's symbol, both lost. The soffit was frescoed with sacred images by Giovanni Fernandez da Navarra, known as il Navarretto.
The gate has a second name, Porta d'Africa, or Porta Vega. In 1550 the viceroy Giovanni de Vega returned from Tunisia, where he had fought the corsair Dragut, and entered the city in triumph through here.
As war booty he brought to Palermo the iron doors of the conquered city, Mahdia: they were installed in 1556. In contrast to Porta Nuova, which glorified the conquest of Tunis, this one celebrated the Mahdia campaign.
The design for the rebuilding, in the mid-sixteenth century, was by the kingdom's engineer Pedro Prado. The Senate invited the poet Antonio Veneziano to celebrate the feat in verse, but the inscription no longer exists.
The gate's history is longer. In 1316 it withstood, together with Porta Termini, the assaults of King Robert of Anjou's army in the wars of the Vespers, and in 1325 it saw fighting again.
The name comes from the nearby church of San Nicolò dei Greci and, according to some scholars, from the Eastern, Balkan and Albanian merchants who lived in the square near the port.
In 1754 and 1783 the two bastions on either side were demolished, the gate was moved toward the sea and, around 1840, Palazzo Forcella De Seta was built over it and swallowed it up.
On the sea side the gate shows its raised rustication, which creates strong play of light and shade, and columns with capitals. Along the architrave run festoons of flowers and fruit, with reclining human figures. The inner side is almost bare of decoration.
Originally there were also an inscription and an armed eagle, the city's symbol, both lost. The soffit was frescoed with sacred images by Giovanni Fernandez da Navarra, known as il Navarretto.
The gate has a second name, Porta d'Africa, or Porta Vega. In 1550 the viceroy Giovanni de Vega returned from Tunisia, where he had fought the corsair Dragut, and entered the city in triumph through here.
As war booty he brought to Palermo the iron doors of the conquered city, Mahdia: they were installed in 1556. In contrast to Porta Nuova, which glorified the conquest of Tunis, this one celebrated the Mahdia campaign.
The design for the rebuilding, in the mid-sixteenth century, was by the kingdom's engineer Pedro Prado. The Senate invited the poet Antonio Veneziano to celebrate the feat in verse, but the inscription no longer exists.
The gate's history is longer. In 1316 it withstood, together with Porta Termini, the assaults of King Robert of Anjou's army in the wars of the Vespers, and in 1325 it saw fighting again.
The name comes from the nearby church of San Nicolò dei Greci and, according to some scholars, from the Eastern, Balkan and Albanian merchants who lived in the square near the port.
In 1754 and 1783 the two bastions on either side were demolished, the gate was moved toward the sea and, around 1840, Palazzo Forcella De Seta was built over it and swallowed it up.