Aosta · Italy
Via Sant'Anselmo
This street leads from the Arch of Augustus to the Porta Praetoria and into the centre, and it is the same one the Roman carts took coming in from Gaul. Walking it, one crosses twenty centuries without changing direction. Today it is the street of small shops, narrow, with wooden signs and facades almost in contact; once it was the final stretch of an imperial road hundreds of kilometres long. The name recalls Anselm, theologian and archbishop, who was born here and departed from here. Anyone arriving on foot from the east still enters exactly as one entered then.
Go deeper
Is it really the Roman road?
It follows its line. The ground level has risen a lot and the houses are medieval and modern, but the direction and width come from it.
Where did it lead?
Towards the Great St Bernard and Gaul one way, towards the Po plain the other. Aosta sat on the knot between the two sides of the Alps.
What should I look at?
The lintels and doorways: many are reused stone, and you can sometimes spot Roman blocks set to work again centuries later.
Where it is
More stories in Aosta
- Adret and envers
- When the railway arrived
- Arch of Augustus
- Regional Archaeological Museum
- The villages the city swallowed
- The Battle of the Queens
- Aosta Cathedral
- Church of Santo Stefano