The Mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian is one of the most significant monuments of ancient Rome. Originally built as an imperial tomb, it was later transformed into a fortress, then a papal residence, then a prison, and finally into the current museum.
The National Museum of Castel Sant’Angelo has, since September 1, 2012, an additional exhibition space of great interest dedicated to the history of Castel Sant’Angelo. In the Alessandro VI rooms, recently restored and an integral part of a project to redevelop and enhance the museum, the exhibition unfolds through a series of engravings, prints, paintings, and reconstructive drawings to illustrate the many, diverse, often misunderstood historical phases that have, over its millenary history, modified, conditioned, and changed the monument.
Divided into four sections, the history of Castel Sant’Angelo is illustrated by period prints, scenic views, and interesting ideal reconstructions of the monument, as suggested by the imagination of Renaissance artists and architects, from its construction until the nineteenth century, in a path that underlines its intense and continuous use.
Built as a mausoleum for Emperor Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus (76-138 AD) and a dynastic tomb for the Antonine family, with Emperor Aurelian first and then Honorius, the massive structure was included in the city walls of Rome and transformed into a sort of fortress for the defense of the city. Due to these prerogatives, from then on, it acquired the nickname of castellum, to which, in the early medieval period, the epithet sancti Angeli was added, from the legend of the vision of Archangel Michael sheathing his sword, as a testimony of the end of the plague.
Its proximity to St. Peter’s, its strategic position controlling the northern entrances to the Urbs, its closed and imposing bulk have made Castel Sant’Angelo the center of political interests, inseparably linking its fate to that of the Church ever since, in 1367, Pope Urban V demanded the keys to the Castle as a condition for the return of the Curia to Rome.
Since then, numerous architectural interventions and constructions of new buildings were carried out, aimed, on one hand, at updating the building to renewed defensive needs, with the construction of bastions and the pentagonal enclosure, and on the other hand to make it increasingly comfortable and suitable for the aspirations of the Curia, assuming, under Paul III Farnese (1534-1549), the aspect of a genuine princely residence.
This continued until more recent times, when the castle was used exclusively as a political prison, called Forte Sant’Angelo, and finally when in 1925 it was transformed into the National Museum. Its charm remains unchanged, as does its ability to impress the collective imagination of the city of Rome, with the “Girandola” event that is renewed every year on June 29, the feast of the city’s patrons, a theme to which the fourth and final section is dedicated.
