Porto (Italy)

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For homonyms, see Porto (disambiguation)

Porto is the name (from Latin Portum) of an ancient port at the mouth of the river Tiber, on the right bank, south of Rome. The division between the ancient settlement and the medieval Porto began in the 4th century CE, when emperor Constantine the Great had a line of walls built.

Ostia, just opposite, on the left bank of the Tiber, was increasingly depopulated after Vandal and Saracen attacks. Porto was the main port on the Tyrrhenian Sea until the 6th century CE. Later it decayed, but maintained some importance as the episcopal see of a bishop which, from 313, was made independent from that in Ostia. Ostia and Porto both were chosen to be amongst the seven suburbicarian dioceses, which are still in existence, and reserved for the members of the highest order of Catholic Cardinals, the Cardinal Bishops, so the prelates of these otherwise insignficant Roman suburbs outrank all archbishops, even the patriarchs.