Antonio Lofrasso was a Sardinian poet who fled his native Alghero to settle in Barcelona during the mid-16th century. His work Los diez libros de Fortuna de Amor, published in Barcelona in 1573, has a peculiar honour. Miguel de Cervantes saves it from burning in Don Quixote. Lofrasso also left behind the only detailed description of Barcelona’s first sea gate that survives today.
The sea gate was the access point cut through medieval walls when they were extended to fortify the entire maritime front of Barcelona. Before this, the city had been extremely vulnerable to attacks from the sea. After Castilian and Genoese ships attacked on 9 June 1359, officials decided to reinforce the maritime entrance. It sat between what is now Plaça del Palau and the Barceloneta neighbourhood.
A Renaissance monument by the sea
The gate was rebuilt between 1553 and 1563 on Emperor Charles V’s initiative. This included constructing the Drassanes bastion and the monumental Renaissance-style portal. In a 1573 text written in Spanish filled with Catalan influences, Lofrasso described the sea entrance. He wrote about four large giant figures made of fine stone that supported the portal’s arch with their heads. Above the arch sat a rich marble shield bearing the city’s royal coat of arms.
Lofrasso called it a portal built “in the Roman style”. Cervantes would walk through this same gate in the early 17th century during his stay in Barcelona. It appears briefly in the second part of Don Quixote. The designer was Italian military engineer Giovan Battista Calvi. He also designed Barcelona’s sea wall and other Mediterranean fortifications in Roses, Perpignan, Ibiza, Mahón and Gibraltar.
The only visual record
Beyond Lofrasso’s description, only one visual representation has been identified. Flemish artist Anton Van der Wyngaerde immortalised Barcelona’s coast in 1563. His drawing shows the gateway in the foreground with the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar behind it. If you look carefully, you can make out the portal.
It’s unclear whether they were part of Calvi’s original design or added during later reconstructions. However, at some point before the gate’s final demolition in 1833, two Medusa heads presided over the sea portal. One of these figures survives today at Casa Museu Santacana in Martorell.
Saved by a collector’s passion
The piece was among many that artist and landowner Francesc Santacana i Campmany gathered throughout his life. His personal collection grew from romantic idealism and a determination to prevent historical pieces from being lost. Santacana collected remnants of palaces and religious buildings, tiles of all kinds, and examples of medieval art and mid-19th century work. His became one of Spain’s first museums.
Among the displayed pieces was this Medusa head. It was placed in a portico in his Martorell garden and reused as an ornamental fountain. After the patriarch’s death, his grandson Francesc Santacana i Romeu created an inventory of the collection. The record indicates the figure came from Barcelona’s sea gate, one of ten gates in the city’s second walled enclosure.
The catalogue notes that the fortification was demolished for reforms at Plaça del Palau. These culminated with a new monumental portico built between 1844 and 1848. The entry includes a photograph and this description: “These gates connected the city with the sea via the Barceloneta side. They were the last gates to close in the city, so crowds of people who had been late for other gates would gather there. The only notable decoration was two large Medusa heads, one on each side. Sentries could watch what was happening outside through the open mouths. One was lost and the other is the one in this museum.”
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