The Golden Gate ( hr, Zlatna vrata, la, Porta Aurea), or "the Northern Gate", is one of the four principal Roman gates into the stari grad (old town) of

Split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enterta ...

. Built as part of

Diocletian's Palace Diocletian's Palace ( hr, Dioklecijanova palača, ) is an ancient palace built for the Roman emperor Diocletian at the turn of the fourth century AD, which today forms about half the old town of Split, Croatia. While it is referred to as a "palac ...

, it served as the main gate through which the

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

entered the complex and was elaborately decorated to mark its status. Over the course of the Middle Ages, the gate was sealed off and lost its columns and statuary. It was reopened and repaired in modern times and now serves as a tourist attraction.

History

The gate stood at a terminal point of the road which led north towards

Salona Salona ( grc, Σάλωνα) was an ancient city and the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia. Salona is located in the modern town of Solin, next to Split, in Croatia. Salona was founded in the 3rd century BC and was mostly destroyed in t ...

, Diocletian's birthplace and the capital of the Roman province of

Dalmatia Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see #Name, names in other languages) is one of the four historical region, historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of ...

. It was probably used by Diocletian to enter the palace after his

abdication Abdication is the act of formally relinquishing monarchical authority. Abdications have played various roles in the succession procedures of monarchies. While some cultures have viewed abdication as an extreme abandonment of duty, in other societ ...

from the imperial throne on 1 May 305. The Romans of

late antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...

called the structure ''Porta Septemtrionalis'' ("Northern Gate"). In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, its name was changed to ''Porta Romae'' ("Roman Gate"); the name "Golden Gate" seems to date from the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

, making its first appearance in the 1553 itinerary of the Venetian trade unions Died and Giustiniana. Amid the upheavals of the

Migration Period The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...

in the 6th century, small churches were built over the Golden,

Silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

Iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

, and

Bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

gates. Dedicated to St. Martin, the church of the Golden Gate occupies a narrow corridor (1.64 x 10 meters), which had been used as a guard passageway in the time of Diocletian. St. Martin's Church was later augmented by a

pre-Romanesque Pre-Romanesque art and architecture is the period in European art from either the emergence of the Merovingian kingdom in about 500 AD or from the Carolingian Renaissance in the late 8th century, to the beginning of the 11th century Romanesqu ...

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

. Demolished in the 19th century, this was similar in style to the still-surviving bell tower of the Church of Our Lady of Zvonik above the Iron Gate. The sieges of the early Middle Ages prompted the town's inhabitants to close off the gate, using a smaller and more defensible passageway in its place. In more settled times, a new gate, the Door of Picture, permanently superseded the Golden Gate as the main entrance to the city on the north side. In or around 1630, the Venetian governor Alvise Zorzi ordered the disassembly of eleven Roman towers on the north and east sides of the palace wall, sending the stone blocks to Venice to be used in the construction of

Santa Maria della Salute Santa Maria della Salute ( en, Saint Mary of Health), commonly known simply as the Salute, is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located at Punta della Dogana in the Dorsoduro sestiere of the city of Venice, Italy. It stands on the narr ...

. Among the casualties of this project were the two octagonal towers flanking the Golden Gate. The gate was only re-opened in 1857, in an undertaking which necessitated the demolition of houses which had been built up against the north wall of the palace. Much accumulated earth was cleared away, but around 2 meters of the gate and wall remain below ground level. The most recent reconstruction was carried out by the metropolis in the first years of the new millennium, with the gate covered in a building wrap from 2012 until 2015. As of 2020, the structure was open to the public.

Description

The Porta Septemtrionalis was the "main landward gate" of Diocletian's palace, located in the middle of the northern wall. Its exterior opening measures 4.17 by 4.36 meters; above the lintel is a 3.02-meter-high arch composed of 19 stone blocks. The double doors of the gate were set into this opening, which could also be closed by a

portcullis A portcullis (from Old French ''porte coleice'', "sliding gate") is a heavy vertically-closing gate typically found in medieval fortifications, consisting of a latticed grille made of wood, metal, or a combination of the two, which slides down gr ...

. Between the inner and outer openings of the gate is a courtyard ( propugnaculum), once overseen by guard passageways built into its upper walls. The inner gate opens onto the

Cardo Maximus A cardo (plural ''cardines'') was a north–south street in Ancient Roman cities and military castra, camps as an integral component of city planning. The cardo maximus, or most often the ''cardo'', was the main or central north–south-oriented ...

, at whose opposite end is the Bronze Gate. Centuries of soil accumulation at the base of the wall have reduced the openings in the gate from 6.5 to fewer than 4.5 meters in height. 20130603 Split 085

Set into the facade of the gate are five niches, two on each side of the central arch and one above. Four of these once housed statues of the

Tetrarchs The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman emperor Diocletian in 293 AD to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two emperors, the ''augusti'', and their juniors colleagues and designated successors, the ''caesares''. ...

Diocletian Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles ...

Maximian Maximian ( la, Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus; c. 250 – c. July 310), nicknamed ''Herculius'', was Roman emperor from 286 to 305. He was ''Caesar'' from 285 to 286, then ''Augustus'' from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his ...

Galerius Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus (; 258 – May 311) was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. During his reign he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sasanian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across the D ...

and

Constantius Chlorus Flavius Valerius Constantius "Chlorus" ( – 25 July 306), also called Constantius I, was Roman emperor from 305 to 306. He was one of the four original members of the Tetrarchy established by Diocletian, first serving as caesar from 293 t ...

. The fifth, central niche was made too shallow to hold a statue, to leave room for the portcullis to retract into the upper part of the gate. The restorers who noted this shallowness also saw no evidence of statues having stood in the other niches, and expressed doubt that the decoration of the gate was ever finished. The upper three niches are incorporated into a

blind arcade A blind arcade or blank arcade is an arcade (a series of arches) that has no actual openings and that is applied to the surface of a wall as a decorative element: i.e., the arches are not windows or openings but are part of the masonry face. It is ...

of seven arches. Formerly the arches were supported by columns, whose bases stood on

corbels In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the st ...

projecting from the facade. These columns have since disappeared, although five of their

capitals Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

remain, still affixed to the underside of the arcade. The undersides of the corbels are decorated with carved acanthus, with the exception of those immediately over the gateway, which display sculptures of small humanoid faces with horns (one set of which has been broken off) and animals' ears. A modern scholar found these faces "not unlike medieval devils" in appearance. Above the arcade are four plinths; some reconstructions of the gate prefer these, rather than the niches, as the location of the Tetrarchs' portrait statues.

John Bryan Ward-Perkins John Bryan Ward-Perkins, (3 February 1912 – 28 May 1981) was a British Classical architectural historian and archaeologist, and director of the British School at Rome. Family and early life John Bryan Ward-Perkins was born on 3 February 19 ...

sees the style of the gate as influenced by the architectural practices of the eastern

Roman provinces The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th centur ...

, particularly

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. He cites such "typically Syrian" features as the "combination of an open arch with a horizontal lintel ndthe bracketing out on consoles of hedecorative arcade". The outer gate was defended by two

octagonal In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, whi ...

towers, since lost. The surface of each tower on the ground floor was about 60m, the inner diameter 8.53m, and the side 3.41 m. There were no corresponding structures on the inner face of the gate. The towers and their connecting walkways could be entered only through passages built into the palace wall and had no doorways on the ground floor.

Gallery

File:SPLIT-Porta Aurea restitution.jpg , Reconstruction of the 5th century Porta Aurea File:SPLIT-Porta Aurea remains 1910.jpg , View of The Golden Gate ca. 1910, Photo by E. Hébrard and J. Zeiller, Spalato, le Palais de Dioclétien, Paris, 1912. File:Zlatna vrata.jpg , The Porta Aurea, during cleaning and restoration 2007

References

External links

Zlatna vrata u Splitu - putovnica.net
(accessed 23.06.2019.)
Zlatna vrata - visitsplit.com
(accessed 23.06.2019.) {{Landmarks in Dalmatia World Heritage Sites in Croatia Archaeological sites in Croatia Buildings and structures in Split, Croatia Ancient Roman buildings and structures in Croatia Romanesque architecture Churches in Croatia Tourist attractions in Split-Dalmatia County City gates in Croatia

History

Description

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links