Milan Wall
Introduction
The city of Milan, Italy, has had three different systems of defense walls. The oldest Roman walls were developed in two stages, the first in the Republican era and the second in the Imperial era. The second system of walls was built in the Middle Ages (17th century), after the destruction of the city by Frederick I Barbarossa. Finally, the last system of walls was built by the Spanish rulers (20th century). Although very little remains of these walls, their structure is clearly reflected in the urban layout of the city. In particular, modern Milan has two rings of approximately circular streets, namely the "Cerchia dei Navigli" and the "Cerchia dei Bastioni")", which essentially correspond to the medieval and Spanish walls, respectively. Note that a third ring of roads beyond the inner ring road (circonvallazione interna/"Cerchia dei Bastioni"), called the outer ring road (circonvallazione esterna), It is not due to any ancient wall; but it was part of the 1884 Beruto Plan for the city of Milan, created and named in honor of a municipal engineer and public servant of the city's local government.[1]
Roman walls
Republican walls
The oldest wall system was built when Milan (the Mediolanum became a Roman municipium, in 49 BC. It was essentially square, each side about 700 m long. The walls had 6 main gates, which are generally known as "Porta Romana" (in Piazza Missori), "Porta Ticinese" (in Carrobbio), "Porta Vercellina" (where the church of Santa Maria alla Porta is located), "Porta Orientale" (or Porta Argentea, on via San Paolo), "Porta Jovia" (on via San Giovanni sul Muro) and "Porta Cumana" (at the end of Via Broletto, between Via Cusani and Via del Lauro). Note that some of these names (e.g. "Porta Romana" and "Porta Ticinese" are also used to refer to gates of later wall systems located in the same area).
Walls of Maximian
In the imperial era, while Mediolanum was capital of the Western Roman Empire, Emperor Maximian expanded the city walls; to the east, it was intended to include the Baths of Hercules (located around what are now Piazza San Babila, Corso Europa and Piazza Fontana); To the west, new walls surrounded the arena. In general, the new wall systems exceeded 100 hectares. Two gates were added, later referred to as "Porta Nuova" (on what is now the corner between via Manzoni and via Montenapoleone) and "Porta Tonsa" (in the area now known as "Verziere").