The Majeure Door
Position
Via Porta Maggiore, 16/18
02039 Toffia (RI)
Opening hours
Always open
Contacts
Tel.
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The Porta Maggiore (the Majeure Door) in Toffia was built in the late fifteenth century, in a phase of expansion of the town and its perimetral walls. Porta Maggiore was the main gateway to Toffia castle, and was formerly a drawbridge: the holes where supporting chains passed are still visible, as well as subsequent hinges hung with (until a few years ago) shreds of the old door.
Outside, on the right at the top, the Toffia embleme is carved: the Church – Castle with two lateral towers reshaping the imperial Abbey Farfa, very linked to the Toffia population for most of its old history .
On the interior of the door, formed in the thickness of the walls, we can easily recognize spaces used by on – access watchers to the country. One them is still called by local elders la casermetta (the barracks). Portion of an ancient fresco are not clearly visible on the wall, on the right side of the entrance.
Entering from the inner side of Porta Maggiore, we find the Sala del Corpo di Guardia (the guard-room), once a strategic and loopholes overlooking over the outer entrance, and currently hosting the Municipal Historical Archives.
CURIOSITY
The Lion of Toffia
On the wall running along Piazza Umberto I in Toffia there is the limestone statue of a lion, today very damaged and with no legs and part of the face – seemingly coming from a Roman tomb located along the Via Salaria and dated between the II Century b.C. and the Augustan age.
The Lion of Toffia, together with other artifacts scattered around the country, was part of a bishop’s throne in the Church of St. Lawrence. In a 1681 deed (full descritpion below, but also quoted in the dedicated sheets) it is reported a 82 years old witness’ declaration on that, properly:
“I have always seen and observed in that church towards the high altar of St. Lawrence martyr […] to the part of the gospel, there was a large stone chair fixed on the wall, as you can sit in a chair by a man-made from episcopal see and from others publicly. There was such a stone chair because the church of S. Lorenzo di Toffia was the second home in Sabina, and I remember very clearly that when the chorus on that altar was[…] threatened by destruction, in 1664, was demolished, and done it again for the foundations of St. Lawrence chapel in the same church, in that time masons was removed.
Leftovers of that chair are still dispersed in the country, that is to say the pedestal remained in their own church, that is to say a cornu altar epistles; a bust of the lion, which was once walled in the parapet of the fountain; a side of the chair is placed at the site of the seditore (The sitter) voc. Piazzetta [ “with other stones involved in the same chair”], the house once belonging to the Fido family and now to Vincenzo Paoletti, while the other can be seen on the door said the Gate … “