A short note mentions the gate in Vilnius, which used to be the bell tower of the former Franciscan church and probably dates back to the early 15th century. It was originally intended as an entrance gate. The text recalls its history and function (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1886, Series 4, T:8, p. 319, after: University of Łódź Digital Library).

A modernised reading of the text

The ancient gate in Vilnius

This characteristic structure, displayed in the drawing as the belfry of the former Franciscan church, undoubtedly dates from the early 15th century and originally had a different purpose. It was a defensive entrance gate, like the Castle Gate, Rudnicka and Trakai Gates, which no longer exist, or like the Gate of Dawn, formerly called Medininkai because it led to the Duke's castle in Medininkai. The perimeter of the town at the foot of the Vyšné castle, the ruins of which still stand, was still notably thinner at the end of the 15th century than it was a hundred years later, when the new defensive wall was built around 1600. The latter, curving from the Gate of Dawn along today's Polotska Street, already enclosed the Franciscan Church within the city limits.

Previously, the church, then wooden, had been outside the city proper, in the suburb called Piaski. This location was described by the first Bishop of Vilnius, Vasilii, in his will from 1398. It may be presumed that Vilnius was surrounded by a defensive wall, but within limits which were not as narrow as later. This wall could have run near today's German Street, and the gate shown on the drawing must have been a part of it. This, at least, is the assumption made by A. H. Kirkor in his respectable "Strolls around Vilnius".