by Giuseppe Agostino Pietro Vasi, 1747

It consists of a single large arch built for Pope Gregory XIII perhaps by Giacomo della Porta or, it is claimed, Giacomo del Duca, who had collaborated with Michelangelo on the Porta Pia. The confusion is due to the fact that the chronology of the time simply speaks of a famous architect called Giacomo. Popular tradition has it that the architect was Della Porta, as he died among the crowd in front of the door "that he had built" of violent indigestion caused by melons and watermelons, returning from a trip to the Castelli Romani.

Inaugurated in 1574, it was made necessary by the reorganization of the entire Lateran area to facilitate traffic to and from southern Italy. Its opening led to the definitive closure of the nearby and more imposing Porta Asinaria, of Aurelian date, which already in the 1570s proved incapable of supporting such a high volume of traffic and was almost unusable due to the progressive raising of the neighboring road level.