Castel Sant'Angelo — castle
Image by rainhard2 from Pixabay

Castel Sant'Angelo

  • 1 min read
  • 41.903° N 12.466° E

Interesting facts

  • In 537, as Goths besieged Rome, defenders hurled the tomb's bronze and stone statues down onto the attackers.
  • The mausoleum was originally topped with a garden and a gilded four-horse chariot, or quadriga.
  • Hadrian's ashes were laid here with those of his wife Sabina and his first adopted son, Lucius Aelius.
  • The last emperor known to have been interred here was Caracalla, in 217.
  • When the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, looters scattered the imperial urns and their ashes.
  • The current bronze angel by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt replaced a 1536 marble Saint Michael by Raffaello da Montelupo in 1753.
  • Puccini set the last act of Tosca here: the heroine leaps to her death from the castle's ramparts.
  • The goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini was imprisoned here, and the philosopher Giordano Bruno spent six years in its cells.
  • For centuries the castle was the stage for a celebrated fireworks display held each year on the feast of Saint Peter.

Why it is worth it

Hadrian started building his own tomb in 123 CE and didn't live to see it finished — it was completed in 139 under his successor Antoninus Pius, a cylindrical drum of a monument meant to hold the ashes of an emperor and his family for eternity. Eternity lasted about three centuries as a mausoleum. By the 5th century Rome's defenders had already folded the tomb into the city's Aurelian Walls as a fortress, because a solid stone cylinder that size, sitting right on the Tiber, was too good a defensive position to leave to the dead.

Its current name comes from a specific legend: in 590 CE, during a plague, Pope Gregory the Great is said to have seen the Archangel Michael appear on the summit sheathing his sword — read as a sign the epidemic was ending. A statue of the angel has stood on top ever since, and the building has cycled through duty as papal residence, state prison, and now museum, on top of its original job as a tomb.

The detail that turns it from a fortress into a thriller set is the Passetto di Borgo: an elevated, roughly 800-metre corridor built into the old city wall, connecting the castle directly to the Vatican. It existed for exactly one purpose — getting a pope out fast — and it was used for real at least twice, most famously by Clement VII, who ran the length of it to escape into the castle while Rome was being sacked by mutinous imperial troops in 1527.

Getting there

Located in Vatican City. Ciampino–G. B. Pastine International Airport (CIA) is about 16 km away.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Rome 41The Most Beautiful Places in Lazio 47The Most Beautiful Places in Italy 279The Most Remarkable Monuments in Italy 5The Most Remarkable Museums in Lazio 5The Most Beautiful Ancient Sacred Places in Italy 5The Most Beautiful Mausoleums in Italy 6The Most Remarkable Ancient Monuments 7The Most Beautiful Castles in Italy 8The Most Beautiful Ancient Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 8The Most Beautiful Ancient Squares, Streets and Monuments 8The Most Remarkable Ancient Archaeological Sites in Italy 9The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites in Lazio 10The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments in Lazio 10The Most Remarkable Ancient Places in Lazio 10The Greatest Ancient Archaeological Wonders in Italy 10The Most Remarkable Museums in Italy 14The Greatest Archaeological Wonders in Lazio 14The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in Lazio 15The Most Remarkable Ancient Places in Italy 16The Most Beautiful Ancient Sacred Places 18The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites in Italy 22The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Italy 22The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments in Italy 22The Most Beautiful Buildings in Italy 30The Most Beautiful Mausoleums 36The Greatest Archaeological Wonders in Italy 36The Most Remarkable Ancient Archaeological Sites 36The Greatest Ancient Archaeological Wonders 52The Most Remarkable Monuments 56The Most Remarkable Ancient Places 78The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in Italy 83The Most Remarkable Museums 93The Most Beautiful Castles 94The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments 173The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites 193The Most Beautiful Buildings 286The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302The Greatest Archaeological Wonders 306The Most Beautiful Sacred Places 623

From the encyclopaedia

Castel Sant'Angelo, also known as Mausoleum of Hadrian, is a towering rotunda in Parco Adriano, Rome, Italy. It was initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family. The popes later used the building as a fortress and castle dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, and it is now a museum. The structure was once the tallest building in Rome.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

41.90304, 12.46631per Wikidata