Save time with our Skip the line tickets!

The history of Castel Sant’angelo substantially coincides with that of Rome and it is impossible to separate these two deeply intertwined entities: the changes, upheavals, miseries and glories of the ancient city seem to be reflected promptly in the massive mass that for almost two thousand years is reflected in the lazy waters of the Tiber.

It was born as a sepulcher wanted by the Emperor Hadrian in a peripheral area of ancient Rome and fulfilled this original function until 403 AD. approximately, when it was included in the Aurelian walls at the behest of the western emperor Honorius. From this moment a ‘second life’ begins in the guise of a castellum, an advanced bulwark beyond the Tiber to protect the city. Numerous Roman families contend for possession, which seems to guarantee a position of pre-eminence within the confused order of the city: it will be the stronghold of Senator Teofilatto, the Crescenzi, the Pierleoni and the Orsini.

It is precisely a Pope Orsini – Nicholas III – who had the Passetto di Borgo built, which connects the Vatican to the Castle, in physical and ideal continuity. The very long and varied history of the building, with its thousand metamorphoses, seems to have settled in the complicated tangle of basements, rooms, loggias, stairs and courtyards that make up the current layout of the Castle. The original structure and subsequent superfetations interpenetrate, overlapping and merging with each other, and giving life to a multifaceted and complex organism, full of symbolic values and historical stratifications.

Other SF Events Italy offers include: