Enclosed in the walls, this construction marked the entrance in Benevento of the Via Traiana, the road built by the Spanish emperor to shorten the path from Rome to Brindisi.

They plainly refer to actual events and actions in the life of Trajan, whose effigy, sometimes decapitated, appears in all but two of them, one of which is the only one on all the Arch that is substantially defective.

The arch was put during the Middle Age in the fenced area of the town, in order to represent the Porta Aurea, on account of its fair proportions and the wealth and excellence of its sculptural adornments.

The church interior was once totally frescoed by Byzantine artists: fragments of these paintings, portraying the Histories of Christ, can be still seen in the two side apses.

Santa Sofia was almost destroyed by the earthquake of 1688, and rebuilt in Baroque forms by commission of the then cardinal Orsini of Benevento (later Pope Benedict XIII).

The Benevento Cathedral, with its arcaded façade and incomplete square campanile (begun in 1279 by the archbishop Romano Capodiferro) dates from the 9th century.

Another testimony of the cathedral is the 12th-century bronze door, the Janua Major, composed of 72 tiles with bas relief, whose fragments were rebuilt after the Second World War.