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Hidden gem1st c. BC – 3rd c. ADFree

Porta Savoia

Porta Savoia, Porta del Paradiso

gate · Piedmont, Italy

What it is
Porta Savoia (de.wikipedia uses the French form, Porte de Savoie) is the gate the Romans built into the new walls of Segusio, today's Susa in Piedmont, in the 3rd century AD, and it is still well preserved: two round towers and the wall between them, pierced by rows of arched windows, standing over the street into the old town.
What you’ll see
The gate is two cylindrical towers with a central block between them over the carriageway.
Worth the trip?
The two together are worth a stop. The gate takes a few minutes: it is a street gate in a working town square, not a monument you go inside, and the archway itself is the 1750 one.
Getting there & cost
The gate is in the centre of Susa, on Piazza Savoia beside the cathedral (it.wikipedia).Free · Nothing to pay at the gate, which is a public street · checked 20 October 2026Hours, tickets and parking
A tall gate of rubble stone and brick, two round towers with a sloping stone base and rows of arched window openings above, joined over a wide arched passage, with the white gabled facade of the cathedral standing against it on the left.
Porta Savoia, with the facade of the cathedral of San Giusto on the left. · Photo: Alessandro Vecchi · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Looking up at the two round brick and stone towers and the wall between them, each pierced by staggered rows of arched openings, above a plain stone arch spanning the street; a white church wall with a painted lunette stands at the right.
The east side of the gate. The arch over the street dates from the rebuilding of 1750. · Photo: Zairon · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
A single-arched monument of pale stone over a paved path, with fluted columns at its corners, a carved band running below the cornice and a tall plain attic on top, trees and old walls behind it.
The Arch of Augustus, 9–8 BC, about 200 m from the gate. · Photo: Tournasol7 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Porta Savoia (de.wikipedia uses the French form, Porte de Savoie) is the gate the Romans built into the new walls of Segusio, today’s Susa in Piedmont, in the 3rd century AD, and it is still well preserved: two round towers and the wall between them, pierced by rows of arched windows, standing over the street into the old town. About 200 m away stands Susa’s other Roman landmark, the marble Arch of Augustus of 9–8 BC, which de.wikipedia calls the best-preserved monument of its kind in northern Italy.

What is there today

The gate is two cylindrical towers with a central block between them over the carriageway. The lower part of each tower stands about 6 m above today’s ground; above it, single arched windows are set in staggered rows, three or four storeys of them in the towers and four rows in the central block. The levels were presumably divided by timber floors, and the central rows matched wooden connecting balconies; none of that timber survives (it.wikipedia). OpenStreetMap records the gate as 18 m high.

The passage you walk through is not Roman. In 1750 the original gate frame was removed and the opening widened and raised, so that the new arch fills the whole space between the towers, and the right-hand tower, seen from the town, was given a conical masonry casing (de.wikipedia; it.wikipedia). The cathedral of San Giusto, founded in the 11th century, stands next to the gate (de.wikipedia). In Piazza Savoia, which the gate faces, the remains of the temple of the Roman forum, uncovered when the square was redeveloped in 2005–2008, are on view (Ministry of Culture). Of the town’s other Roman gate, on the east side towards Turin, only a fragment built into other buildings survives (de.wikipedia).

The Arch of Augustus

The arch stands on a rise at the western edge of the town, on the line of the ancient road over the Alps, outside the circuit of walls, which was only built in the 3rd century AD (de.wikipedia; it.wikipedia). It has a single archway and measures 11.93 m wide and 7.30 m deep; published heights are 13.1–13.3 m. It is built of white marble from the nearby Foresto quarries on bases of grey stone (de.wikipedia; it.wikipedia). A fluted column with a Corinthian capital stands at each corner, and above them a carved frieze about 33 m long runs round all four sides: on the north, a sacrifice of a pig, a ram and a bull, with the animals shown far larger than the men leading them; on the south, a second sacrifice, usually taken to be performed by the local king Cottius; on the west, representatives of the fourteen communities named in the inscription. The east side is worn past reading. The dedication to Augustus runs across the attic on both main faces; its gilded bronze letters were stripped long ago, and it is now read from the recesses that held them (it.wikipedia).

The opening is aligned with the summit of the Rocciamelone, the highest mountain of the Susa valley (it.wikipedia; de.wikipedia). The arch shares one archaeological area with the arches of the aqueduct and the castle, in whose courtyard excavation has exposed structures of the palace of the Roman governor (Ministry of Culture).

Is it worth the trip?

The two together are worth a stop. The gate takes a few minutes: it is a street gate in a working town square, not a monument you go inside, and the archway itself is the 1750 one. The arch rewards a longer look: de.wikipedia calls it the oldest arch on which a sculpted frieze was used as decoration, and it was put up to celebrate an alliance between Rome and an Alpine king rather than a conquest (it.wikipedia). Add the aqueduct arches beside it, the governor’s palace under the castle and the amphitheatre (see Segusio – Susa), and Roman Susa fills a morning on foot. The road through Susa leads on to the Mont Cenis and Montgenèvre passes into France (de.wikipedia), so it is also an easy break on the way over the Alps.

Getting there

The gate is in the centre of Susa, on Piazza Savoia beside the cathedral (it.wikipedia). Free street-side parking is mapped about 60 m away, with public toilets and drinking water within about 50 m and the town’s Museo civico some 160 m off; the Arch of Augustus is about 200 m from the gate (OpenStreetMap). No bus stop or station is mapped close to the gate.

There is nothing to pay and no opening time: the gate spans a public street, and the Ministry of Culture lists the area of the arch and the aqueduct as always accessible, with no booking needed (cultura.gov.it, read 20 October 2026). Hours and tickets for the amphitheatre and the castle are on the Segusio – Susa page.

Visiting details

Opening hours
The gate spans a public square and street and can be seen at any time. The Ministry of Culture lists the area of the Arch of Augustus and the aqueduct as always accessible.
Tickets
Nothing to pay at the gate, which is a public street. The Ministry's page for the Susa archaeological areas lists no charge for the arch and aqueduct area and says no booking is needed.
Parking
Free street-side parking about 60 m from the gate, two stretches of 16 and 14 spaces (OSM way/1275045108 and way/1275045107).

Before you go

  • No bus stop or railway station is mapped within a few hundred metres of the gate.

Hours and prices checked 20 October 2026 on the operator's own site. Confirm before travelling.

History

Cottius, the local king, made an alliance with Augustus in 13 BC, and in 9–8 BC he had the arch built in the emperor’s honour (it.wikipedia). Its inscription names him as Marcus Julius Cottius, son of King Donnus, prefect of fourteen Alpine communities (en.wikipedia), and the arch is described as celebrating that pact rather than a victory (it.wikipedia). Segusio was the capital of the Roman province of the Cottian Alps (Ministry of Culture).

In the 3rd century AD Segusio received new walls, of which extensive remains survive, with two gates on the road from Italy into Gaul; the western one is Porta Savoia (de.wikipedia). The name is medieval: it faced Savoy, reached over the Mont Cenis, which made it the town’s most important gate in the Middle Ages, on a branch of the Via Francigena; the name “del Paradiso” comes from the cathedral’s cemetery beside it (it.wikipedia; de.wikipedia). The cathedral was founded next to the gate in the 11th century, in the time of Adelaide of Susa (de.wikipedia), and the gateway was rebuilt in 1750. The arch was restored for its two-thousandth anniversary in 1990–1992 under the archaeological superintendency of Piedmont (it.wikipedia).

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from the records below, each used under the licence noted.

SourceLicence
Wikidata Q15695819CC0
OpenStreetMap way/290506097ODbL
Wikipedia (it) — Porta SavoiaCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (de) — Porte de SavoieCC BY-SA 4.0
Pleiades — Arch of Augustus (Susa)licence not recorded
Wikidata — Arch of Augustus, Susa (Q1892101)licence not recorded
Wikipedia (de) — Augustusbogen (Susa)CC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (it) — Arco di Augusto (Susa)CC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (en) — Arch of Augustus (Susa)CC BY-SA 4.0
Ministero della cultura — Aree archeologiche del castello e dell'anfiteatro romano di Susa (the operator)licence not recorded