Porta Vittoria (now gone, just a piazza) was so named after the battles that took place there during the Five Days of Milan, the violent conflict which saw the Milanese finally victorious in ridding the city of the Austro-Hungarian occupation and army. So far, fairly standard name and naming practice.
Prior to this, however, this gate into the medieval city walls was called Porta Tosa, which translates roughly as the “Door of the Shaving lady” or “..of She who Shaves.”
Yes.. ahem.. slightly different naming protocol here.
Legend has it that it got its name after the Milanese delegation to the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople was refused their requests for financial assistance following Frederick Barbarossa’s sack of Milan in 1162. Out of spite, the Milanese affixed the marble bas-relief to this Easternmost and thus Constantinople-facing porta as an insult to the Eastern Emperor.
Another story holds that the porta was so named during one of Barbarossa’s many sieges of the city. Vastly outnumbered, the Milanese apparently knew that the next day the city would fall. However, that morning a young Milanese woman climbed to the ramparts of the porta at dawn, faced Barbarossa’s waking army (camped outside of the city walls), hiked up her skirt for all the troops to see, and began to shave herself. Completely awestruck and certainly with battle and fighting no longer on their minds, they promptly dropped their weapons then and there, abandoned camp, and took the road home.
What we do know for sure is that the bas-relief is from the 12th century, probably an example of the Northern Italian Celtic apotropaic tradition of creating effigies to ensure good luck/health and to ward off evil/disease. Obviously much too controversial for 15th century Milanese Christian sensibilities, it was removed from the porta by Cardinal Borromeo, and is now visible in the museum of the Castello Sforzesco in town.
Just a piece of stone… right?