Overview
Located away from the historic core bounded by the outer walls, it is supported by walls dating back to pre-Roman times. The vast four-sided area of the acropolis is also the site of a market dating back to the Roman Republican era, which evidently housed a number of workshops. On the edge of this area are two mediaeval buildings: the Palace of Innocenzo III and the 13th-century Palace of the Knights Gaudenti. The mighty walls that encircle the entire city are almost intact, despite the interventions of the Middle Ages; they still preserve the gates, including Porta Sanguinaria, the so-called Pentagonal gate, whose pointed arch recalls that of the Greek acropolis of Tiryns, and Porta Maggiore, also known as Porta di Casamari, from the Sillan era. These walls resisted Roman invasion for a long time, which finally came between the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 1st century BC.
