The Portico of Octavia is a complex of monuments built in Rome during the reign of Emperor Augustus (between 27 and 23 B.C.E.) in the Circus Flaminius (the area that corresponds to the ancient ghetto) in place of the previous Portico of Metellus. The ruins that can be seen today are the result of radical rebuilding in 203 C.E. by Septimius Severus after a fire in 191 C.E..
It was once a four-sided portico, with a nave in the front and two on the sides – which included the temples of Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator, two libraries in Greek and Latin, and a large building for public meetings, the Curia Octaviae.
Today the south-eastern corner remains and the monumental gateway, the vestibule. The Portico resembles a monumental entrance with a façade of four Corinthian columns and pilasters. The architrave preserves the dedication of 203 C.E., the front has no decorations. From 1555 when the ghetto was established, the eastern corner of the gateway represented an outer limit of the area of confinement of the Ghetto’s inhabitants.
In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the porticoed areas of the monument were used at the city’s main fish market, active until the end of the 1800s. After significant restoration work on the church in late 1200, the two front eastern columns of the gateway façade were replaced with a large brick arch, still visible today, which leads to the entrance of the church.
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