Arco dei Gavi

Arco dei Gavi stands beside Castelvecchio in Verona as a Roman honorary arch built during the first half of the first century AD. Local limestone and white Valpolicella stone form four fronts, Corinthian half-columns, and coffered vaults above the passages.

The Gavi family commissioned this private monument near the start of the Via Postumia, outside Verona’s Roman walls. Inscriptions identify Caius Gavio Strabo, Marco Gavio Macrone, and Gavia, while the architect Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo appears twice inside. Medieval walls turned the arch into Porta di San Zeno, and the Scaligeri later joined it to Castelvecchio with a clock tower and guard post.

French engineers dismantled the structure in 1805, but most stones survived beneath Verona’s Arena. Reconstruction finished beside Castelvecchio in 1932, using original material and older drawings for the missing upper section. A Roman house and mosaic floor found nearby in 2011 now add another layer to the surrounding history.