Next to the Templar Tower, this room is one of the architectural testimonies linked to the presence of the Knights of the Temple in the historic centre of San Felice Circeo.
The hall now used as the office of the Pro Loco, known as the “Porta del Parco”, belongs to the baronial complex, although it predates it. The name probably comes from the elegant pointed-arch doorway that forms the monumental entrance to what was originally the reception hall of the Templar Tower. It was in fact connected to the adjacent keep by a staircase that still exists but can no longer be used, visible through a glass case behind the office reception desk.
The doorway closely recalls the Cistercian architectural style, which reached Lazio at the beginning of the 13th century with the French monks building the beautiful abbey of Fossanova. On entering the hall, the architecture of the room immediately shows all its interest, with two different building phases clearly visible.
The first phase is told by the back wall in elegant, finely made opus reticulatum, belonging to a late Republican building (2nd century BC) that the Templars used to build the Tower and its related buildings. On these remains the medieval building was added seamlessly, with a building technique very similar to that of the Tower and of the fortification walls of the nearby garden of Vigna la Corte.
In the medieval parts, the material is laid differently on the outer walls of the hall, facing the town hall square and next to the elegant Gothic doorway, and on the inner ones. On the outside the technique is more careful: the limestone blocks are cut regularly, so that the mortar beneath does not show and the wall is compact and solid; being visible from outside, it had to meet certain aesthetic standards, not needed on the inner walls, where the work is quicker and less meticulous.
The study of the ancient structure of the room, however, is limited to the perimeter walls, because modern “restoration” work has altered their correct reading and interpretation. Originally its space must have been completely different, as some architectural details make clear.
Against the walls of the hall stand pillars of squared limestone blocks, also medieval, completely stripped of their original function of supporting the roof. The hall must have had a barrel or cross vault, or perhaps wooden trusses, which cannot be deduced from the current state of the ceiling, covered in reinforced concrete.
At the end of the left wall there is also a small single-light window – identical to those on two of the four walls of the Templar Tower – partly blocked by the modern concrete vault. The height of the little window suggests that the room was originally much loftier, with a roof certainly higher than the present one.
The similarity of the masonry to that of the Templar Tower places the building among those built by the warrior monks, and it was probably the reception hall used by the monks for official ceremonies or for receiving the people.
It was by the will of Pope Gregory IX that, after 1239, the Circeo became one of the possessions of the church of Santa Maria on the Aventine and thus of the Templar order, which completed the rebuilding of the fortified village, affected in the early 13th century by numerous wars and devastation. The Templar presence on the promontory ended in 1259, with the exchange of the Circeo possessions for the Casale Pilocty, near Rome.
From this building phase survive the Tower, the adjacent hall of the Porta del Parco and some entrance gates in the ancient walls with their characteristic pointed shape, a novelty introduced into Lazio architecture by the craftsmen who built the abbey of Fossanova, consecrated by Innocent III in 1208.