Porta San Niccolò: The Tower That Kept Its Height

Why is it significant?

Stand on the riverside square and tilt your head back: the tower of Porta San Niccolò rises straight up from the lawn, square, tall and completely alone, with no wall left on either side to hold it. Behind it, ramps and staircases zig-zag up the hill you have just come down.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand on the riverside square and tilt your head back: the tower of Porta San Niccolò rises straight up from the lawn, square, tall and completely alone, with no wall left on either side to hold it. Behind it, ramps and staircases zig-zag up the hill you have just come down.

This gate was built in 1324, part of the same ring of walls as Porta San Giorgio. Once every gate in Florence had a tower this tall. But in the sixteenth century, when cannon made high towers into easy targets, the Florentines cut them down to the height of the walls. This one, protected by the hill behind it, was spared, and it is the only gate in the city that still stands at its full original height.

Then came the nineteenth century, and Giuseppe Poggi's plans for the capital. The walls along here were demolished, and the tower could easily have gone with them. Poggi chose to keep it, standing free, as a monument to the medieval city, and he built the square around it.

The ramps behind the tower are his too, the Rampe del Poggi: flights of steps and gravel paths winding past grottoes, fountains and a cascade of water, linking the river to the terrace at the top. They were designed to make the climb a pleasure, a stroll through a garden rather than a march up a slope. After years of neglect they have been restored, and on summer evenings they fill with people walking up to watch the sunset.

In the summer months the tower itself is sometimes opened, and you can climb its narrow stairs for a view straight down the Arno. Now walk away from the river, into the narrow street of shops and houses that leads west, Via di San Niccolò, to the parish church of this quarter.