[8] The building had taken on a basilican shape with three naves (of which the left one, the oldest, had an irregular trapezoidal plan) with orientation along the north-south axis (opposite to the present) and the entrance facing the gulf.

[12]The same year the construction of a large bell tower would begin from the massive basement, for which blocks from the marble facing of the mausoleum of Lucius Sempronius Atratinus were used.

[13] The base was conceived hollow on the inside, so that it could form the monumental access to the cathedral behind, a function it fulfilled until the reconstruction following the June 1213 earthquake, as part of which the orientation of the church was reversed.

[14] He belonged to a well-known family of Roman marble workers, whose progenitor was Paulus vir Magnus, active in the 13th century in Lazio and also in Rome, where Nicola d'Angelo, with whom Gaeta's Nicolangelus is hypothetically identifiable,[16] collaborated with Pietro Vassalletto in the making of the Easter candle column in the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The first was in the years 1958-1963 under the direction of architect Raffaele Perrotti:[23] in the first phase there were works of static consolidation, with the installation of a widespread chaining system using steel bars and the construction of new internal reinforced concrete floors;[24] the second phase involved the external decorative apparatus,[25] which included the removal of the face of the seventeenth-century clock,[22] and the total reopening of all the mullioned windows, with the liberation of the related columns from support pillars, where present, within which they had been caged.

[28] In 2019-2020, a major structural consolidation and restoration work was carried out on the entire tower, also aimed at making it usable and open to visitors, under the direction of Alessandro Catani; during this, among other things, the internal metal stairs connecting the various floors were redone and the surviving elements of the northern clock were removed; the inaugural ceremony was held on August 12, 2020.

[31] The high basement is in the shape of a parallelepiped and is made largely with material from the mausoleum of Lucius Sempronius Atratinus, a Roman consul who committed suicide in 20 B.C., located in a prominent position over the Borgo of Gaeta.

on the summit of Mount Orlando:[13][40] [L(ucio)•Mun]ATIO•L(ucii)•F(ilio)•[Planco][Cretes(ium)•]GORTYNII•[patrono]Just above it, there is another short inscription that refers to the Gens Ummidia:[41] [- - -] P(ublius?)

The artifact, in the shape of an altar, comes from the land surrounding the turris Garilliani, built by Gaeta's hypatos John I on the left bank of the Garigliano River immediately after the victorious battle of 915 against the Saracens stationed there, which earned him the title imperialis patricius, found in the inscription.

This one, about 50 centimeters wide, is carved directly inside the stone blocks that make up the base of the bell tower and is interrupted in the middle by a cross-vaulted landing, while that of the ramps is barrel vaulted; the ceiling is decorated with some bas-reliefs, such as a crescent moon and rosettes.

[51] At the top of the staircase, in the curved wall of the apse (whose basin, until the restorations of the third quarter of the 20th century, was decorated with stucco coffers)[52] opens a wide portal, with a simple marble frame.

[53] The door opens in the terminal part of the left wall of the third right chapel of the cathedral, which lacks an altar, opposite the arched entrance to the seventh nave.

[2] The figure of the fish, characterized by a strong realism and similar in some respects to a dragon, with wings, and scales and a webbed tail, is similar to that on the ambon of the epistle in the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Ravello (in mosaic) and the pulpit in Minturno (in bas-relief);[64] as well as to a bas-relief fragment with Jonah set free of unknown provenance, now in the National Museum of Capodimonte, and to another, lost, probably from the lost ambon of the ancient cathedral of Montecassino.

The one on the left has a rectangular-shaped chest, with two strigilated fields interspersed with bas-reliefs depicting winged Genies at the ends, and in the center probably Cupid and Psyche; at the corners of the double-sloping lid, there are akroteria with floral motifs.

Above the northern mullioned window, in the interior façade, the remains of the mechanism of the 18th-century clock, no longer in operation, can be seen; its marble dial was removed during the 1958-1962 restorations and is currently on display at the Diocesan Museum along with the hands and numerals.

[72] The third and last order is also decorated, above the windows, by a marble band with two-colored geometric inlays; it is surmounted by a series of small ogival arches resting on small columns, more slender than those on the lower floor, at one of which is embedded in the masonry a glazed ceramic basin painted green,[73] an element also found on the bell tower of the demolished church of Santa Barbara in Gaeta and on the Gothic bell-gable (14th century) of the sanctuary of Santissima Annunziata.

The structure has an octagonal plan, with four circular turrets at the corners,[77] which have a theory of interlaced ogival arches resting on marble columns and, between this and the crowning cap, a band with enameled lozenges and triangles framing recessed basins.

It has a square plan with two orders of round-arched mullioned windows emphasized by tall brick ferrules; the top features a series of interlaced ogival arches in tuff, supported by light marble columns.

[83] It is flanked by the church, to the right of the facade, and rests on a wide pointed arch that forms a barrel-vaulted passage under which there is a street; the wall face is entirely of tuff blocks, with decorative elements of light marble.

Originally the crowning was a tall pyramidal spire, similar to that of the church of San Pietro a Majella in Naples and demolished in the last quarter of the 18th century because it was in a poor state of preservation.