Porta Pia

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  • Address
    Piazzale Porta Pia, Sallustiano
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  • Transport
    bus: Via XX Settembre

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Porta Pia was Michelangelo's last architectural work, commissioned by Pius IV in 1561. Three centuries later, in 1870, it was the scene of fighting as Italian troops breached the surrounding walls to wrest the city from the pope and incorporate it into a unified Italy.

The concrete monstrosity just inside the city walls is the British embassy. Opposite it is Villa Paolina, the residence of Napoleon's sister Paolina Bonaparte between 1816 and 1824 and now the French embassy to the Holy See.