The curtain of Porta Balice in Cagliari

Abstract

Located at the foot of the Elephant Tower, gateway to the medieval town of Cagliari, the curtain of Porta Balice stands protected by quadrangular oreillon located on the right side of the Balice bastion, designed in the mid sixteenth century by Rocco Cappellino. In the eighteenth century, the curtain extends between the Tower and the Porta Balice, a modest access to the walled city built between 1778 and 1780, in place of the "false door", and demolished in 1882. In the eighteenth century map of the city of Cagliari, it is indicated a passage of communication from Bastion Balice in the ditch of the eighteenth-century Basso Fianco of Balice. In the nineteenth, with the demolition of the retired right flank of the Balice bastion, is opened the road “Cammino Nuovo” with the pedestrian link to today's Piazza Yenne through the Santa Chiara steps, drawn up by Gaetano Cima in the plan for Cagliari. Today the curtain Porta Balice remains a tract on which stand a few small houses adjacent to the Elephant Tower.