The Mausoleum of Hadrian, usually known as the Castel Sant'Angelo, is a towering cylindrical building in Rome, initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family. The building was later used as a fortress and castle, and now is a museum.

Hadrian's ashes were placed here a year after his death in Baiae in 138, together with those of his wife Sabina, and his first adopted son - Lucius Aelius, who also died in 138.

Following this, the remains of succeeding emperors were also placed here. The urns containing these ashes were probably placed in what is now known as the "Treasury room" deep within the building. Hadrian also built the Pons Aelius facing straight onto the mausoleum – it still provides a scenic approach from the center of Rome and the right bank of the Tiber, and is renowned for the Baroque additions of statuary of angels holding aloft elements of the Passion of Christ.

Much of the tomb contents and decoration has been lost since the building's conversion into a military fortress in 401 and inclusion by Flavius Augustus Honorius in the Aurelian Walls.

The popes converted the structure into a castle, from the 14th century. Pope Nicholas III connected the castle to St. Peter's Basilica by a covered fortified corridor called the Passetto di Borgo. The corridor was used by Pope Clement VII and his Swiss Guards to take refuge from Charles de Bourbon's army during the sack of Rome in 1527.

At the top of the fortress, looking over the panoramic terrace, is a statue of an angel, built by the 18th century Flemish sculptor Pieter Verschaffelt. The bronze statue replaced an earlier, marble version. The statue depicts the angel who, according to legend, appeared on top of the fortress in the year 590 and miraculously ended the severe plague that had infested the city of Rome. After the event, the building was renamed Castel Sant'Angelo.

The Papal state also used Sant'Angelo as a prison. Giordano Bruno, for example, was imprisoned there for six years. Executions were made in the small interior square. As a prison, it was also the setting for the third act of Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca" from whose ramparts the eponymous heroine of the opera leaps to her death.

Decommissioned in 1901, the castle is now a museum, the Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo.

• Address
  
  

  Lungotevere Castello, 1, 00193
  
  
• Phone
  06 681 91 11
  
  
• Transport
  By Bus: Piazza Pia

 
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