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Abstract: After the Sack of Rome in 1527 and with the new Turkish menace incoming, a new issue was topical: how to defend the city. A few years after he had become Pope, Paul III Farnese (1534-1549) decided to deal with this problem entrusting his favourite architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1484-1546) a hard and ambitious task: renewing the city walls. Sangallo’s project, of which few traces remain, would have followed partly the Aurelian walls perimeter and partly a new path; after few years the job had big economic problems and it was strongly reduced: only few fragments remain of the great original project. The city gates were the main nodes of this new defense system: they were at the same time needs for military, sanitary and fiscal control and triumphal architectures which welcomed the visitors of the Holy city. In his projects for the new Roman city gates, Sangallo was able to bring together harmoniously all these features, joining together the grace of the «all’antica» architectonical language with the meeting of functional requirements.

Keywords: City gate system; History of modern Architecture; History of Roman Urbanism; Antonio da Sangallo the Younger; Military architecture; Paul III Farnese.