One of the Portals at the Porta Nigra in Trier
The city of Trier is home to several Roman monuments that were built over the centuries. The Porta Nigra is probably one of the most well known ones. It is along what is now a main road in the city. Back then, it was used as an an actual city gate. There used to be four of them but eventually, they fell into disuse. The materials of the gates were used for other purposes and all but the Porta Nigra was cannibalized. There was a danger of the last remaining city gate of falling into disrepair so it the converted into a church. For the most part, this worked. Although it wasn’t a city gate anymore, much of the structure was preserved.
Closer Look at the Porta Nigra at Trier
So why doesn’t the Porta Nigra look like a church? Over the centuries, it functioned as a church but when Napoleon Bonaparte saw this, he ordered that the church be dissolved and the building be restored back to a city gate. This was actually done and the church came to look like a city gate once again. I think it would have been nice to have city walls here but I don’t see any at least in the immediate vicinity. The Porta Nigra looks like the colosseum if it looked like a gate. There are two portals here, and it still serves as the entrance of the city center. It is amazing to see how a structure which is almost two thousand years old still retain the same function it did before.
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