What to See in Velletri: Attractions & Sights

More places of interest

Porta Napoletana

Porta Napoletana is a city gate of Velletri and one of the best-known symbols of the town. It takes its name from the road that once left from here towards Naples; the opposite gate, towards Rome, was Porta Romana, in today's piazza Garibaldi, which no longer exists. It was built in 1511 by workers from Lombardy, as the main entrance to the medieval town.
What to see
The gate is striking for its bulk, which impressed among others Gaetano Moroni, and has a portal with a massive iron grille. From here ran the walls that, broken by towers, surrounded Velletri: one of the few surviving towers stands a short distance away. In the sixteenth century, when the circuit was rebuilt and strengthened, Porta Napoletana was one of only three openings kept, together with Porta Santa Lucia and Porta Romana.
On one wall you can still read the notice «Si paga gabella», the toll is paid here, written in 1596 by order of the Congregation of Good Government. The gate was not dismantled in the nineteenth century or later; damaged but not destroyed by the bombings of 1944, which destroyed much of Velletri, it has survived almost intact to this day, and now stands right in the centre, because the town has grown all around it.
Visiting
The gate can be seen freely from the street. Inside is the local branch of the Italian Sommelier Association, and a photographic exhibition on Velletri after the bombings has been held there.
Our editors' tip
Corso della Repubblica, the town's main street, follows inside the walls the route of the via Appia, from where Porta Romana stood to Porta Napoletana: walking it means crossing Velletri along the ancient consular road.
Museo civico archeologico "Oreste Nardini"

The «Oreste Nardini» Civic Archaeological Museum of Velletri was opened in 1920 by the engineer Oreste Nardini, royal inspector of monuments and excavations for the town, and has reopened after a series of restorations. It largely brings together the antiquities that humanists and prelates had collected in the Velletri area since the seventeenth century, creating the Museo Borgiano, the Ginnetti Collection and the Diocesan Museum. Goethe also saw these finds and praised their beauty in his Italian Journey.
What to see
The archaeological route is the heart of the collection. The most famous piece is the Velletri sarcophagus, or sarcophagus of the Labours of Hercules, from the second century, found in 1955: it tells the myth of Alcestis, the queen who gave her life to save her husband Admetus and was brought back from the realm of the dead thanks to Hercules, with theatrical elements and masks. Beside it are the Slab of the Orant, from the fourth century, and the Volscian terracottas found in 1910; other finds came to light in 1881, and in 1980 a Roman sarcophagus was discovered.
The second route, opened in 2005, is devoted to the geopalaeontology and prehistory of the Alban Hills and is divided into five sections. In geology a theatrical «fire duct» leads visitors into a space that reproduces a volcanic eruption; then come palaeontology, with fossils and an explanation of how they form, anthropology, on the development of early humans, prehistory, with reconstructions of life before the discovery of fire, and protohistory, on life before writing.
Visiting
Opening hours and tickets should be checked on the website of the Velletri museums or that of the town council.
Our editors' tip
Not everything found at Velletri has stayed here: many of the finest works are elsewhere, such as the Velletri Pallas, now in the Louvre in Paris.
San Martino

The church of San Martino Vescovo is in the historic centre of Velletri. It is first recorded in a bull of Pope Alexander II from 1065; it was originally Gothic in style. In 1616 Pope Paul V entrusted it to the Somaschi Fathers, who founded a convent and a hospice next to the church.
What to see
Damaged by time and by the battle of Velletri in 1744, the church was rebuilt by the Somaschi between 1772 and 1778 to designs by the architect Nicola Giansimoni; the façade was completed only in 1825, to a design by the architect Matteo Lovatti. Today's building has a Greek-cross plan and a false dome.
Inside is the image of the Madonna and Child, brought here in 1817 from the monastery of Santa Maria dell'Orto, which was already abandoned at the time.
Visiting
Opening and service times should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
On 10 May 1491 Antoniazzo Romano was commissioned to paint for this church a Madonna and Child that the people of Velletri later called the Madonna della Carità, after the confraternity founded in 1569. Since 1816, when the confraternity moved, the Madonna della Carità has been venerated in the church of Sant'Apollonia; the feast, moved in 1838 to the first Sunday in September, has its procession on the eve.