The Pile Gate
The word Pile (pilai) means gate in Greek, so the very name of the western Dubrovnik suburb speaks how The Pile Gate has been for centuries the main entrance to the city. It consists of the outer and inner gates and two bridges.
Many sculptors and builders were engaged in their construction, among them Ivan from Siena (around 1397 he built the first part of the stone bridge) and the local builder Paskoje Miličević (active in the second part of the 15th century). Today's appearance of the Pile Gate dates from 1537 when the statue of St Blaise, the city's patron saint, was set in a niche over the Renaissance arch. Below it there is a stone sculpture of three heads - two female and male one. The scene is connected with a legend of a Franciscan monk who seduced two nuns from the nearby St Claire's Nunnery. Originally the draw-bridge at the gate's entrance was lifted every evening and the gate was closed with a special ceremony. The inner gate was made in the Gothic style in 1460. The tower that existed between the outer in the inner gates was demolished in 1818 when the path between the gates was widened. During this reconstruction, the notable Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović made a banister and two stone candelabras. The same year Meštrović sculpted the statue of St. Blaise set above the inner gate.