CASTEL SANT'ANGELO - MAUSOLEUM OF HADRIAN.
The three lives of an extraordinary monument: Mausoleum, Castle, and finally Museum
Part three.
In the previous pages, we have followed the story of two of the three lives of Castel Sant'Angelo. The first, when it was still the Mausoleum of Hadrian, the new dynastic tomb of the emperors begun by Hadrian and inaugurated by Antoninus Pius in 139 AD, and unfortunately was soon robbed of its most precious marbles.
The second life saw its transformation into an impregnable fortress, Castel Sant'Angelo, which withstood sieges by the barbarians and the Landsknechts.
And during the same period, precisely because the popes often took refuge there, it was transformed into a magnificent papal residence, with increasingly larger apartments decorated by some of the greatest artists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The third life saw yet another period of further decline and destruction, beginning in the 18th century and ending with a new rebirth, when the Castle was transformed into a Museum.
The Pons Aelius suffered the worst devastation. In the mid-18th century, it was on the verge of collapse because some of its arches had been closed, turning it into a veritable dam, which caused constant flooding, and the power of the water had undermined its stability.
In 1886-1887, to solve the flood problem, new embankments were built along the Lungotevere, and at that time, the ancient port of Ripetta, the Altoviti Palace, and many other buildings along the river were demolished.
During the work, the bridge's original Roman access ramps were found, including the paving stones and sidewalks. They were mercilessly demolished to speed up the work, ignoring the desperate pleas of archaeologists like Lanciani.
The fortress-castle fared no better. It became a military depot, with gunpowder magazines, armories, cannon foundries, grain silos, a hospital, and three chapels, with a garrison of five hundred soldiers.
During the Napoleonic occupation of 1798, Pope Pius VI Braschi (1775-1799) found refuge in the Castle, as usual, thanks to the Passetto. When he was forced to surrender, the French retaliated by painting the bronze statue of the Archangel Michael with the three French national colors and adorning it with a red Phrygian cap.
And that was just the beginning. After the French came the Bourbons, who did even worse: they seized the Castle, plundered it, taking ammunition, furnishings, and even the doors, windows, and lead pipes. They then returned it to Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) in pitiful condition.
Fortunately, in 1822, it was decided to restore it, and the work was entrusted to Luigi Bavari, a major of the Papal Engineers with a passion for ancient architecture, who brought the Castle back to life for the third time.
He was lowered into the so-called "Trabocchetto," the trapdoor that opened before the Hall of the Burial Urns, which had been transformed into a casemate, and radically changed our understanding of the Roman Mausoleum.
He in fact rediscovered the original main entrance to the Mausoleum, namely the Lower Vestibule and the Spiral Ramp, which had been walled up and closed in the Middle Ages because they were an indefensible access.
The Vestibule and Ramp were cleared of debris, using the forced labor of convicts who removed thousands of cubic meters of material. Twelve thousand cartloads of earth were used... to fill the fort's bastions, and another six thousand to pave the Viali del Pincio and Piazza del Popolo, which was being built at the time.
After the Breach of Porta Pia in 1870, the Castle passed to the Kingdom of Italy and was converted into a prison. The construction of the new embankments along the Lungotevere had devastating results here too: the street level had to be raised by three meters, so the newly discovered original entrance was walled up again, and today the access is via a descending metal staircase.
Mariano Borgatti oversaw the restoration of the Castle with great passion, and his writings still are a valuable source of information. His contribution was crucial in transforming it into a Museum, which initially was the Museum of Military Engineers, then became the National Military and Art Museum opening to art which is one of its most important features.
During the two World Wars, the Castle served as a refuge for the population and as a repository for important art treasures, such as the four bronze horses from St. Mark's Basilica in Venice.
Today, the Castel Sant'Angelo National Museum is one of the most interesting museums in Rome, since it is a crossroads of history and art. It features a new itinerary and, most importantly, a magnificent Antiquarium that recounts the Castle's long history, with a series of plastic models illustrating the various construction phases, magnificent fragments of the marble decoration, and much more.
The various stages of the Mausoleum-Castle's third life and its transformation from prison to museum are recounted in detail in our book «Castel Sant'Angelo. Mausoleum of Hadrian. Architecture and Light». A story with a happy ending.
The book is on sale in the Bookshop of the National Museum of Castel Sant'Angelo, also in English edition.