011 castel sant'angelo

On Saturday, I spent the afternoon at Castel Sant'Angelo on the west bank of the Tiber, just north of the Vatican.

Castel S'Angelo is one of the most interesting buildings that I have ever toured because of the juxtaposition of so many different periods of time, starting from the 2nd century AD through the fall of the Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, & Baroque. The building was originally Hadrian's mausoleum: a cylindrical structure with marble columns tied into thick masonry walls, sitting on a square base of 89 m. length. It was topped off with statues & cypress trees, with Hadrian in a 4-horse chariot at the very top. Well, not actually Hadrian, he was cremated and left inside, the one on top was a statue.

Now, as the story goes, Rome is under a serious plague in 590 when Pope Gregory the Great walks across Hadrian's Bridge and sees a vision of San Michele above the mausoleum. This prompts him to offer to install a statue of St. Michael and convert the pagan mausoleum to a Christian stronghold if God should stop the plague. So - plague stopped and statue erected. At this time in history, the Roman Empire is in complete shambles, Germanic tribes & Goths are running all over Europe and the Middle Ages are just beginning. The mausoleum seems like a great place to build a castle, so...

They removed the ceremonial hill, trees, and statues, and built a defendable square wall around the entire structure. Over the next few centuries, it was infilled with minor structures and a 2nd layer of defendable walls with plenty of narrow windows for shooting arrows. Then came bastions at the corners with catapults, then a moat completely surrounding the castle with drawbridges at the east and west. Popes moved into the castle and through a few more centuries, the castle was built higher and higher. Some of the highest portions were completed in the Renaissance: a chapel by Michaelangelo, a loggia by Bramante, and frescos of St. Michael and Hadrian (interesting combination) by followers of Raffaele.

Seriously, it's just a building of stuff sloppily piled on older stuff, with no apparent logic or order, which kind of reminds me of the birthday cake I made for Jason last month.


US preservationists would have a hell of a time pinpointing the period of significance for this monster, but it is just this incongruity that made it such a fascinating experience for me.

Here's a section cut through the main building (Kate will have to see this in August, seems like a Revit nightmare.)

The view from the top-most terrace (apparently where the Tosca heroine jumps to her death) is spectacular, so I can hopefully can back later in the summer to draw the skyline. With my ICOMOS card, my admission was free, so I can come back whenever I want without worrying about wasting money on the entrance fee.

Behind the castello, in the previous location of the moat, there is now a public park with tall cypress trees filtering the late afternoon sunlight. There are several pick-up soccer games going on, dogs are playing fetch, and the smallest kids are catching rides on strollers and in bike baskets.