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Porta Nigra

200Ancient Roman buildings and structures in GermanyBuildings and structures completed in the 2nd centuryBuildings and structures in TrierFortifications in Germany
Gates in GermanyWorld Heritage Sites in Germany
Porta Nigra morgens (100MP)
Porta Nigra morgens (100MP)

The Porta Nigra (Latin for black gate), referred to by locals as Porta, is a large Roman city gate in Trier, Germany. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.The name Porta Nigra originated in the Middle Ages due to the darkened colour of its stone; the original Roman name has not been preserved.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Porta Nigra (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Porta Nigra
Porta-Nigra-Vorplatz, Trier Altstadt (Mitte-Gartenfeld)

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Latitude Longitude
N 49.759722222222 ° E 6.6438888888889 °
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Porta Nigra

Porta-Nigra-Vorplatz
54290 Trier, Altstadt (Mitte-Gartenfeld)
Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
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Porta Nigra morgens (100MP)
Porta Nigra morgens (100MP)
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Simeonstift of Trier
Simeonstift of Trier

The St. Simeon’s Collegiate Church [German: Simeonstift] was a collegiate church in Trier, Germany, near the Roman city gate of the Porta Nigra [Latin, “Black Gate”]. Named after the Greek monk, St. Simeon of Trier, it is now a city museum in the former collegiate church’s buildings under the name, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift [City Museum of the Simeonstift]. The church was created in 1037. In 1028 Simeon of Trier settled at the Porta Nigra as a hermit. He was supposed to have walled himself up there at the gate’s east tower. After his death on 1 June 1035, he was buried in his room on the ground floor. In the same year, probably for Christmas, he was canonized by Pope Benedict IX, in one of the first canonizations ever made by a Pope. In honor of the new saint, they built the Simeonstift and converted the former tower to a Doppelkirche [German, “twin church”]. The Archbishop of Trier at that time, Poppo von Babenberg, personally had known the hermit and travelled with him. But a certificate of incorporation of the Simeonstift could not be obtained from him and it was probably never given. However, recent research showed that the church was founded soon after the canonization of Simeon. The Simeonstift was a two-story cloister in four wings with a dormitory in the north wing and a refectory in the west wing. According to the dendrochronological findings, the north wing dates from 1040. The first reliable documentation is a document of 1048, which proves the existence of a provost’s office and therefore the existence of a collegiate church’s charter. Emperor Henry IV in 1098 confirmed all his possessions to the Simeonstift and granted, namely, more than sixty properties and privileges to it.The doppelkirche conversion of the Porta Nigra was reversed more than 750 years later, in 1804, by the order of Napoleon. Since then, the city gate has reverted almost to its original Gallo-Roman condition. Only the Romanesque east side of the choir still testifies from the outside to the fact that the Porta Nigra was once an imposing church.

Trier
Trier

Trier ( TREER, German: [tʁiːɐ̯] ; Luxembourgish: Tréier [ˈtʀəɪɐ] ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves ( TREV, French: [tʁɛv]) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the west of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the border with Luxembourg and within the important Moselle wine region. Founded by the Celts in the late 4th century BC as Treuorum and conquered 300 years later by the Romans, who renamed it Augusta Treverorum ("The City of Augustus among the Treveri"), Trier is considered Germany's oldest city. It is also the oldest seat of a bishop north of the Alps. Trier was one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire during the Tetrarchy period in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. In the Middle Ages, the archbishop-elector of Trier was an important prince of the Church who controlled land from the French border to the Rhine. The archbishop-elector of Trier also had great significance as one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Because of its significance during the Roman and Holy Roman empires, several monuments and cathedrals within Trier are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.With an approximate population of 110,000, Trier is the fourth-largest city in its state, after Mainz, Ludwigshafen, and Koblenz. The nearest major cities are Luxembourg City (50 km or 31 mi to the southwest), Saarbrücken (80 kilometres or 50 miles southeast), and Koblenz (100 km or 62 mi northeast). The University of Trier, the administration of the Trier-Saarburg district and the seat of the ADD (Aufsichts- und Dienstleistungsdirektion), which until 1999 was the borough authority of Trier, and the Academy of European Law (ERA) are all based in Trier. It is one of the five "central places" of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Along with Luxembourg, Metz and Saarbrücken, fellow constituent members of the QuattroPole union of cities, it is central to the greater region encompassing Saar-Lor-Lux (Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg), Rhineland-Palatinate, and Wallonia.