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Abstract: The city gates were at the same time elements of separation and connection between the city and the outside and the most important points of the defensive structure of the city. Following the model of Vitruvius, the fifteenth century treatises provide few directions for the fortification of the gates, connecting them mainly to the tracing of the streets and the plan of the city. At the end of the fifteenth century the development of the poliorcetics relating to the use of gunpowder demanded a radical renovation of the city boundary walls with the introduction of bastions. The sixteenth century military treatises deal with engineering and defensive aspects of the gates, offering solutions to counter the technological innovations in artillery. In times of peace the gate controlled the payment of customs duties and the flow of goods and people in and out of the city; thus the treatises on civil architecture deal with the theme of the representative and monumental decoration of the gate. The late seventeenth century treatises contain brief notes on the fortification of the gates. Their architecture corresponded, in fact, to a well defined typology and the defences were placed already along the borders of the territorial states.

Keywords: City gates; History of modern Architecture; Urban History; Triumphal arches; Vitruvius; Serlio; Fortification; Architectural treatises.