Walk through Mestre today and you might not notice the red tiles set into the pavement at the corner of Via Caneve and Via Slongo. Yet these faint outlines are all that remain of Porta Altinate, once a principal gateway into the walled Mestre Castle.
Positioned to the west, on the road to Altino, it was one of three gate-towers that guarded the fortified city — the others being the Civic Tower and Belfredo Tower. As well as marking the city’s thresholds, these towers functioned as customs posts for goods flowing into Mestre.
The castle they defended, known as Castelnuovo, was completed in the early 15th century. Its defences included a kilometre-long wall, shaped like a shield, punctuated with towers and turrets.
The gate was also called the Porta dei Molini, or “Mill Gate”, after two public watermills were built nearby in the early 1500s by order of Venice’s powerful Council of Ten. The mills, fed by a network of canals and diverted rivers, didn’t last long — flooding forced their closure within a few years.
If you're curious to see what the original fortress might have looked like, head to the first floor of the VEZ Civic Library. In the frescoed hall, there’s a detailed 3D model of the 1405 castle created by local secondary school students.
Photographs: Gabriele Vattolo – City of Venice; Model images by Istituto Berna.
