Castillo de Sant'Angelo
Alexander VI, who undertook several reforms, used it as a prison and as a personal refuge.
This imposing fortress has its origins in the mausoleum that Emperor Hadrian had built for himself and his family in the year 135. In the year 403 it was transformed into a military building within the Aurelian wall.
During the plague epidemic that devastated the city in the year 590, Pope Gregory I had a vision of the Archangel Saint Michael on top of the castle, announcing the end of the epidemic. The figure of him crowns and gives name to the construction that has survived to this day.
In 1277, a fortified corridor of 800 meters was built that connected the castle with the Vatican and allowed the popes to take refuge in the fortress in case of siege or danger.
The castle is divided into five floors which are accessed via a spiral ramp. The upper floors maintain different rooms that functioned as a residence, decorated with Renaissance frescoes.
On the upper floor there is a large terrace from which the entire city could be watched.
On the ground floor there is an extensive lapidary of Alexander VI, a pope who undertook various improvements to the defensive complex, building the four pentagonal bastions and the moat. The pope embellished the castle with gardens and fountains (Alexander VI's courtyard, with a well decorated with the Borgia coat of arms), and ordered the installation of a new apartment, frescoed by Pinturicchio.
Alexander VI himself used the defensive function of the castle in 1494 to take refuge during the invasion of Rome by the troops of Charles VIII of France, and Cesare Borgia secluded himself in the enclosure several times after the death of his father to safeguard the family from the wrath of their enemies.
The history of the castle is full of illustrious prisoners and prisoners, a good number of whom did not come out alive. Catalina Sforza, the secretary of Alexander VI, Bartolomeo Flores, the Archbishop of Calahorra, members of the Caetani family, Astorre Manfredi or Cardinal Orsini, who died of poison, were locked up by direct order of the Borgias.
