The Palatine Towers is an ancient Roman

Roman architecture

Ancient Roman architecture adopted certain aspects of Ancient Greek architecture, creating a new architectural style. The Romans were indebted to their Etruscan neighbors and forefathers who supplied them with a wealth of knowledge essential for future architectural solutions, such as hydraulics...

-medieval structure in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The structure served as one of four Roman city gate

City gate

A city gate is a gate which is, or was, set within a city wall. Other terms include port.-Uses:City gates were traditionally built to provide a point of controlled access to and departure from a walled city for people, vehicles, goods and animals...

s, which allowed access from north to the cardus maximus, the typical second main street of a Roman town. They are located near the Duomo di Torino and Palazzo Reale

Royal Palace of Turin

Royal Palace of Turin or Palazzo Reale, is a palace in Turin, northern Italy. It was the royal palace of the House of Savoy. It was modernised greatly by the French born Madama Reale Christine Marie of France in the seventeenth century. The palace was worked on by Filippo Juvarra...

.

In its current appearance, the building comprise two polygonal towers, of sixteen sides each, and a central gate. Only the latter is an original Roman structure, the towers having been added in the following years. The merlon

Merlon

In architecture, a merlon forms the solid part of an embattled parapet, sometimes pierced by embrasures. The space between two merlons is usually called a crenel, although those later designed and used for cannons were called embrasures.-Etymology:...

s are from 1404.

The name Porta Palazzo comes from the Latin Porta Palatii (“gate of the palace”), referring to the connected Imperial Palace, which housed numerous historical figures, including the Lombard

Lombards

The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 kings and Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

, and was later the seat of the communal authorities.

During the early eighteenth-century period of urban reconstruction in Turin, the gate was preserved only through the personal intervention of architect Antonio Bertola. It was one of the few ancient landmarks to be saved from destruction.

Two bronze statues (copies of older statues) were positioned in front of the monument during the Fascist era.

In 2006 the City of Turin started a requalification of the archaeological area improving the park, making the towers accessible to the public and building an underground parking for the carts of the nearby Porta Palazzo market.