The Ponte S. Angelo is the Pons Elius of Hadrian, built as an approach to his mausoleum, and only intended for this, as another public bridge existed close by, at the time of its construction. It is almost entirely ancient, except the parapets. The statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, at the extremity, were erected by Clement VII., in the place of two chapels, in 1530, and the angels, by Clement IX., in 1688. The pedestal of the third angel on the right is a relic of the siege of Rome in 1849, and bears the impress of a cannon-ball.

These angels, which have been called the “breezy maniacs” of Bernini, are only from his designs. The two angels which he executed himself, and intended for this bridge, are now at S. Andrea della Fratte. The idea of Clement IX. was a fine one, that “an avenue of the heavenly host should be assembled to welcome the pilgrim to the shrine of the great apostle.”

From the Ponte S. Angelo, when the Tiber is low, are visible the remains of the bridge by which the ancient Via Triumphalis crossed the river. Close by, where Santo Spirito now stands, was the Porta Triumphalis, by which victors entered the city in triumph.

Facing the bridge, is the famous Castle of S. Angelo, built by the Emperor Hadrian as his family tomb, because the last niche in the imperial mausoleum of Augustus was filled when the ashes of Nerva were laid there. The first funeral here was that of Elius Verus, the first adopted son of Hadrian, who died before him. The Emperor himself died at Baiæ, but his remains were transported hither from a temporary tomb at Pozzuoli by his successor Antoninus Pius, by whom the mausoleum was completed in A.D., 140. Here also were buried, Antoninus Pius, A.D., 161; Marcus Aurelius, 180; Commodus, 192; and Septimius Severus, in an urn of gold, enclosed in one of alabaster, A.D., 211; Caracalla, in 217, was the last Emperor interred here. The well-known lines of Byron:

seem rather applicable to the Pyramid of Caius Cestius than to this mausoleum.

The Castle, as it now appears, is but the skeleton of the magnificent tomb of the Emperors. Procopius, writing in the Sixth Century, describes its appearance in his time. “It was built,” he says, “of Parian marble; the square blocks fit closely to each other without any cement. It has four equal sides, each a stone’s throw in length. In height it rises above the walls of the city. On the summit are statues of men and horses, of admirable workmanship in Parian marble.” Canina, in his Architectura Romana, gives a restoration of the mausoleum, which shows how it consisted of three stories: 1, A quadrangular basement, the upper part intersected with Doric pillars, between which were spaces for epitaphs of the dead within, and surmounted at the corners by marble equestrian statues; 2, a circular story, with fluted Ionic colonnades; 3, circular story, surrounded by Corinthian columns, between which were statues. The whole was surmounted by a pyramidal roof, ending in a bronze fir-cone.

The history of the Mausoleum, in the Middle Ages is almost the history of Rome. It was probably first turned into a fortress by Honorius, A.D., 423. From Theodoric it derives the name of “Carcer Theodorici.” In 537, it was besieged by Vitiges, when the defending garrison, reduced to the last extremity, hurled down all the magnificent statues which decorated the cornice, upon the besiegers. In A.D., 498, Pope Symmachus removed the bronze fir-cone at the apex of the roof to the court of St. Peter’s, whence it was afterwards transferred to the Vatican garden, where it is still to be seen between two bronze peacocks, which probably stood on either side of the entrance.

Belisarius defended the castle against Totila, whose Gothic troops captured and held it for three years, after which it was taken by Narses.

It was in 530 that the event occurred which gave the building its present name. Pope Gregory the Great was leading a penitential procession to St. Peter’s, in order to offer up prayers for the staying of the great pestilence which followed the inundation of 589; when, as he was crossing the bridge, even while the people were falling dead around him, he looked up at the Mausoleum and saw an angel on its summit, sheathing a bloody sword, while a choir of angels around chaunted with celestial voices, the anthem, since adopted by the church in her vesper service—“Regina cœli, lætare—quia quem meruisti portare—resurrexit, sicut dixit, Alleluja.”—To which the earthly voice of the Pope solemnly responded: “Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluja.”[10]

In the Tenth Century the fortress was occupied by the infamous Marozia, who, in turn, brought her three husbands (Alberic, Count of Tusculum; Guido, Marquis of Tuscany; and Hugo, King of Italy), thither, to tyrannize with her over Rome. It was within the walls of this building that Alberic, her son by her first husband, waiting upon his royal stepfather at table, threw a bowl of water over him, when Hugo retorted by a blow, which was the signal for an insurrection, the people taking part with Alberic, putting the King to flight, and imprisoning Marozia. Shut up within these walls, Pope John XI. (931–936), son of Marozia by her first husband, ruled under the guidance of his stronger-minded brother Alberic; here, also, Octavian, son of Alberic and grandson of Marozia, succeeded in forcing his election as John XII. (being the first Pope who took a new name), and scandalized Christendom by a life of murder, robbery, adultery and incest.

In 974, the Castle was seized by Cencio (Crescenzio Nomentano), the consul, who raised up an anti-pope (Boniface VII.) here, with the determination of destroying the temporal power of the popes and imprisoned and murdered two popes, Benedict VI. (972), and John XIV. (984), within these walls. In 996, another lawful pope, Gregory V., calling in the Emperor Otho to his assistance, took the Castle and beheaded Cencio, though he had promised him life if he would surrender. From this governor the fortress long held the name of Castello de Crescenzio, or Turris Crescentii, by which it is described in mediæval writings. A second Cencio supported another anti-pope, Cadolaus, here in 1063, against Pope Alexander II. A third Cencio imprisoned Gregory VII. here in 1084. From this time the possession of the Castle was a constant point of contest between popes and anti-popes. In 1313, Arlotto degli Stefaneschi, having demolished most of the other towers in the city, arranged the same fate for S. Angelo, but it was saved by cession to the Orsini. It was from hence, on December 15, 1347, that Rienzi fled to Bohemia, at the end of his first period of power, his wife having previously made her escape disguised as a friar.

“The cause of final ruin to this monument,” is described by Nibby to have been the resentment of the citizens against a French governor who espoused the cause of the anti-pope (Clement VII.) against Urban VI. in 1378. It was then that the marble casings were all torn from the walls and used as street pavements.

A drawing of Sangallo of 1465 shows the upper part of the fortress crowned with high square towers and turreted buildings; a cincture of bastions and massive square towers girding the whole; two square-built bulwarks flanking the extremity of the bridge, which was then so connected with these outworks that passengers would have immediately found themselves inside the fortress after crossing the river. Marlianus, 1588, describes its double cincture of fortifications,—“a large round tower at the inner extremity of the bridge; two towers with high pinnacles, and the cross on their summits, the river flowing all around.”

The Castle began to assume its present aspect under Boniface IX. in 1395. John XXIII., 1411, commenced the covered way to the Vatican, which was finished by Alexander VI.; and roofed by Urban VIII., in 1630. By the last named pope the great outworks of the fortress were built under Bernini, and furnished with cannon made from the bronze roof of the Pantheon. Under Paul III. the interior was decorated with frescoes, and a colossal marble angel erected on the summit, in place of a chapel (S. Angelo inter Nubes), built by Boniface XIV. for the existing angel of bronze, by a Dutch artist, Verschaffelt.

Of the Castle, as we now see it externally, only the quadrangular basement is of the time of Hadrian; the round tower is of that of Urban VIII., its top added by Paul III. The four round towers of the outworks, called after the four Evangelists, are of Nicholas V., 1447.

The interior of the fortress can be visited by an order. Excavations made in 1825 have laid open the sepulchral chamber in the midst of the basement. Here, stood in the centre, the porphyry sarcophagus of Hadrian, which was stolen by Pope Innocent II. to be used as his own tomb in the Lateran, where it was destroyed by the fire of 1360, the cover alone escaping, which was used for the tomb of Otho II., in the atrium of St. Peter’s, and which, after filling this office for seven centuries, is now the baptismal font of that basilica. A spiral passage, thirty feet high and eleven wide, up which a chariot could be driven, gradually ascends through the solid mass of masonry. There is wonderfully little to be seen. A saloon of the time of Paul III. is adorned with frescoes of the life of Alexander the Great, by Pierino del Vaga. This room would be used by the pope in case of his having to take refuge in S. Angelo. An adjoining room, adorned with a stucco frieze of Tritons and Nereids, is that in which Cardinal Caraffa was strangled (1561) under Pius IV., for alleged abuses of authority under his uncle, Paul IV.—his brother, the Marquis Caraffa, being beheaded in the castle the same night. The reputed prison of Beatrice Cenci is shown, but it is very uncertain that she was ever confined here,—also the prison of Cagliostro, and that of Benvenuto Cellini, who escaped, and broke his leg in trying to let himself down by a rope from the ramparts. The statue of the angel by Montelupo is to be seen stowed away in a dark corner. Several horrible trabocchette (oubliettes) are shown.

On the roof, from which there is a beautiful view, are many modern prisons, where prisoners suffer terribly from the summer sun beating upon their flat roofs.

Among the sculptures found here were the Barberini Faun, now at Munich, the Dancing Faun, at Florence, and the Bust of Hadrian at the Vatican. The sepulchral inscriptions of the Antonines existed till 1572, when they were cut up by Gregory XIII. (Buoncompagni), and the marble used to decorate a chapel in St. Peter’s! The magnificent easter display of fireworks (from an idea of Michael Angelo, carried out by Bernini), called the girandola, used to be exhibited here, but now takes place at S. Pietro in Montorio, or from the Pincio. From 1849 to 1870, the Castle was occupied by French troops, and their banner floated here, except on great festivals, when it was exchanged for that of the pope.

Running behind and crossing the back streets of the Borgo, is the covered passage intended for the escape of the popes to the Castle. It was used by Alexander VI. when invaded by Charles VIII. in 1494, and twice by Clement VII. (Giulio de’ Medici), who fled, in 1527, from Moncada, viceroy of Naples, and in May, 1527, during the terrible sack of Rome by the troops of the Constable de Bourbon.

“The Escape” consists of two passages; the upper open like a loggia, the lower covered, and only lighted by loop-holes. The keys of both are kept by the pope himself.

S. Angelo is at the entrance of the Borgo, promised at the Italian invasion of September, 1870, as the sanctuary of the papacy, the tiny sovereignty where the temporal sway of the popes should remain undisturbed,—the sole relic left to them of all their ancient dominions.