is among the most impressive and best preserved among the original doors of the entire walls and its name derives from that of the street that runs through it and that, in Roman times, was the way to reach up to Capua . Within the city began in the ancient Porta Capena of Servian walls, and just after it divided, in fact, in Via Latina and Via Appia , to rejoin again after Capua. The philologists the XIV century refer to a legend (the most obvious is the anachronism of the same) that the name derives from the fact that there would be hidden ( latens , in fact) the god Saturn , fleeing after being dethroned by his son Jupiter . From the thirteenth century is attested to the name of Free Port , but for which there is no trace of the eighteenth century in favor of the term "classical" Porta Latina.
The entire building, battlements, and flanked by two semicircular towers provided with slits, one on the right side, however, was entirely rebuilt by Honorius, and later restored in the Middle Ages. But the other suffered a rehash of some importance: it shows the presence of slits for archers instead of windows for ballistae , as in the original towers of Aureliano . In addition, the base of the tower has a different plan dall'alzato.
time Honorius also dates back to the remake travertine facade, which were open at the control room, five arched windows, which, however, were again closed quite early, in the sixth century . Access to the room for maneuver was allowed through a door, still in existence and functioning on the inside of the tower on the right. As was customary for the doors of some importance, was the outer lock gate, while the inner two doors. The fortified inner courtyard, with its double door, no longer exists.
But other than epidemics, a valid reason for the decline of the port was the progressive loss importance of the Via Latina in favor of the nearby Via Appia Nuova, or the proximity of the important Church of San Giovanni a Porta Latina managed to curb the crisis. Restoration of the seventeenth century , attested by the arms of Popes Pius II , Urban VIII and Alexander VII in the immediate vicinity, do not raise the fate of the door, which was finally closed for most of the ' 800 (from 1808 , except in a few months 1827) and was only reopened in 1911 , having also failed to block the Italian troops in September 1870 , had tried to open here, even before a Porta Pia, a breach.
(Source Wikipedia ) 
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