Gate of Saint Frediano

Brief Information

The Gate of San Frediano was conceived as the most imposing gate in Florence’s defensive wall, but its history moved in the opposite direction: the structure remained unfinished, and before the Siege of Florence it was lowered and reinforced. Thus two intentions came together in a single building: a ceremonial entrance on the important road to Pisa and the more down-to-earth defensive logic of the age of firearms.

The gate stands in the west of Oltrarno and belongs to the sixth circuit of city walls, built in 1332–1334. Its name is connected not with the surviving nearby church, but with the artisans’ settlement of Borgo San Frediano and the church of San Frediano, which has not survived to our time. The gate’s very name therefore preserves a trace of a vanished urban setting.

What to Notice First

It makes sense to look at the gate as a structure that was altered for new methods of defense and movement. Its overall form recalls an unfinished grand design, while the later lowering and reinforcement explain why the majestic project took on a heavier, more practical character. Above the inner arch is the stone coat of arms of Florence: it directly links the passage with the city, not only with the road beyond it.

The most concrete traces of its former use are the enormous wooden doors with original bolts and the wrought-iron rings on the outer side, to which horses were tied. These details shift the gate from the category of an “old wall” into that of a working urban mechanism: here the passage was closed, people and goods were admitted, and travelers stopped at the entrance to the city. It is also important that in 1865–1870 the wall in this area was not demolished for the sake of the road; what was changed above all was the passage through the gate itself.