Fano, a coastal town in the Marche, is situated at the point where the via Flaminia, a primary Roman road restructured by Augustus in circa 27 B.C., meets the Adriatic coast. The town was mentioned by Vitruvius in his treatise ( De Architectura, L.II e L.V) as the site of his project for a Forum complex comprising, as well as the Forum itself, the imperial basilica with attached Aedes Augusti and the temple of Jupiter ( Aedes Iovis ) facing the basilica.

From the year 200 onwards important archaeological discoveries have been made at Fano: the most important being the amphitheatre and theatre. The excavations of the probable Fanum Fortunae (remains of an underground cryptoporticus discovered in the mid 1800s) on the site of Sant’Agostino were extended. These structures were presumably linked to the theatre and the baths, all situated in one zone (constituted by two insulae). On the site of the ex-school “L. Rossi” a re-examination of the finds discovered in the early 1900s, following new surveys and excavations, suggested that they possibly belonged to a Capitoline Temple of Republican date incorporated into a subsequent imperial complex: the public market-macellum. Lastly we can mention the very recent discovery of the remains of the foundations of the cavedium of the colony’s main gate complex (of which the so-called arch of Augustus constituted the front façade). The planning and construction of this gate are thought to date to circa 25 B.C., the year when Vitruvius was probably present at Fano, whilst the completion of work on the inner wall circuit probably dated to 9 A.D., as indicated on an inscription on the main trabeation of the arch of Augustus. The cavedium was strictly correlated with the work which brought the line of the via Flaminia from Forcolo (3 km from the centre) into the centre of Fano to then go straight out and link up to the original route towards Pisaurum and Ariminum.

What emerges from an examination of the finds is the indisputably innovative technological and functional character of the gate at Fano compared to the typical model of the time (the Lion Gate at Verona – 50 B.C.; the Venus Gate at Spello – c. 30 B.C.; the Palatine Gate at Turin – 27 B.C.; the Aosta Gate – 25 B.C.). The main innovation was in the shape of the towers flanking the access archways for carts and pedestrians, which at Fano, for the first time were semicircular (U-shaped) in order to assure a better defence against demolition by battering rams (as recommended in De Architectura I.5.5). Later gates all adopted this form (gates of Nimes and Autun – c. 16 B.C.; the original gates in the Aurelian walls at Rome – 275 A.D.; the Porta Nigra at Trevir – c. beginning of the 4th century A.D.) There is also reason to believe that whoever planned the structure at Fano had also foreseen the possibility of a “flanking” defence of the curtain walls in the form of fixed positions for scorpiones (small catapults for arrows). This would constitute a surprising anticipation of the Renaissance “bastioned defences”.