Castel Sant'Angelo

Castel Sant'Angelo is also known as The Mausoleum of Hadrian. Castel Sant'Angelo is one of the town's most famous landmarks. It is a towering cylindrical building in Rome. The cylindrical structure built over a square base was built by the Emperor Hadrian to house his remains and those of his family, the future emperors of Rome. It was renamed as Castel Sant'Angelo after the huge bronze angel at its top. The building, located in the rione of Borgo, spent over a thousand years as a fortress and castle, and is now a museum.

In the past, Castel Sant'Angelo was sadly notorious for functions of a much more grave nature. Its courtyards were the scene of executions by decapitation and the heads of the condemned were then hung for days along the bridge as a terrible warning.



Today Castel Sant'Angelo is visited by tourists from all over the world. The Castel Sant'Angelo appeared in Dan Brown's 2000 novel Angels and Demons and also in the film Roman Holiday. The castle has five floors and houses a national Museum. At the bottom there are the winding ramps dating back to Roman times; on the second floor you can still see the prison cells, as well as the storerooms for oil and grain. The third is the military floor with two large courtyards. On the fourth, the papal floor, there are the loggia of Julius II by papal architect Bramante, the papal apartments frescoed by Giulio Romano and painters of Raphael's school, the treasure room, and the room of Cagliostro the famous magician and alchemist who was imprisoned and tortured there in the 18th century. At the very top, right under the huge bronze angel, there is a terrace, where there is also a charming al fresco bar, where you can enjoy a stupendous panorama of the city.


The building of Castel Sant'Angelo consisted of an enormous quadrangular basement, 89 m. per side and 15 m. high. On top was a cylindrical drum (diam. 64 m., height 21 m.) flanked by radial walls. A tumulus of earth planted with trees rose up over the drum. Along the edges were decorative marble statues and at the centre, raised even higher up, was a podium with columns on top of which was a bronze quadriga with the statue of Hadrian.