006.

Porta S. Lorenzo ol. Esquilina

Unusual for Roman gates, Porta S. Lorenzo has square flanking towers instead of the usual round ones, due to later reconstruction. Its name refers to the church of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura (St Lawrence outside the walls, Plate 47A) one kilometer further out on Via Tiburtina, the road which leads to Tivoli (ancient Tibur), and leaves from this gate. Oddly Vasi refers to this road in his subtitle as the "Via Prenestina," which leaves not from this gate but from Porta Maggiore, Plate 7. "Esquilina" as the ancient name of the gate is a misnomer because it referred to a gate in the Republican walls, Plate 126. Visible through the gate is an arch of the Acqua Marcia aqueduct, whose trace the walls of Aurelian followed at this point. The lower level of this arch with respect to that of the gate reveals the considerable rise in ground level in the four centuries elapsed between the Augustan reconstruction of the aqueduct and the building of the gate. The gate is now sealed. The street issuing from it is still labeled Via Tiburtina Vecchia, replaced in 1884 by the nearby Viale del Camposanto (now called Via Tiburtina [nuova]). At the extreme right hand edge of the print Vasi depicts a long-vanished inn (visible at the first intersection on the Nolli plan) with the sign VINI DI TUTTI LI SORTI (wine of all types), some of which must have been imbibed by the sleeper propped up against the wall below the sign.