Description of the attraction
The castle of Sant'Angelo (Saint Angela), whose massive block still dominates the panorama of Rome, originally served as the tomb of the emperors and was turned into a fortress only in the Middle Ages. The castle is also called Hadrian's Mausoleum. To connect this magnificent monument with the Champ de Mars, the Pont de Sant'Angelo was built. It consists of three huge central arches and two inclined platforms supported by three arches on the right bank and two on the left.
The scheme of the construction of the mausoleum, included in the building of the castle of Sant'Angelo in the Middle Ages, has remained largely unchanged. The building stands on a huge quadrangular base, each side of which is 89 meters long and 15 meters high. On this base, a cylindrical drum 21 meters high is installed, surrounded by radial walls. On top of this drum is a huge earthen mound lined with trees, with marble statues at its edges. Outside, the building is lined with moonstone (a kind of marble) with tablets mounted around the entire circumference of the wall, which indicate the names and titles of those who were buried inside the mausoleum. The burial room, located in the very center of the massive drum, is square in shape with three rectangular niches. In this room were placed urns with the ashes of the emperors.
Perhaps already in 403, the emperor Honorius included this building in the bastion of the defensive wall of Aurelian. Having become a fortress, in 537 it was besieged by the Goths under the leadership of Vitig. Its transformation into a castle took place in the 10th century. Today the castle is a powerful fortress on a square base with four round towers at the corners, bearing the names of the apostles: St. Matthew, St. John, St. Mark and St. Luke. At the time of the pontificate of Benedict IX, a cylindrical building was installed on the base, repeating the scheme for building the mausoleum of Hadrian. Further changes were made to the castle during the reign of popes Alexander VI and Julius II. Under the latter, a loggia was built in the upper part of the castle, as a frame for the pope's apartments.
Upstairs there is a viewing terrace, above which hovers the Angel, who gave the name to the castle, which, according to legend, brought salvation to Rome from the terrible plague epidemic that raged during the pontificate of Gregory the Great. The inside of the castle currently houses the National War Museum and the Museum of Art.
