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 Porta Castello (Book 1) (Map C2) (Day 8) (View C3) (Rione Borgo) In this page:
Porta Castello was opened in the walls built by Pope Pius IV as a mere utility gate for the garrison of Castel Sant'Angelo and it was not embellished with inscriptions and coat of arms. For this reason the etching by Giuseppe Vasi pays little attention to Porta Castello and dedicates the view to showing groups of people enjoying a moment of leisure (for a detail of this plate click here); on a fine spring or autumn day, but not in summer when it was unhealthy to spend much time near the river, the Romans came to prati (meadows) di Castello to play and dance or just walk around. The Villas (with the exception of Villa Borghese) were not open to the public and so the open space north of Castel Sant'Angelo, was the public garden of Vasi's Rome.
Today it is not possible to place oneself at the exact location from which Vasi took his view because the area of prati di Castello was developed in the late XIXth century. In 1921 the new development became Prati, a new rione of Rome and in the 1930s Porta Castello and the walls from there to Porta Angelica were pulled down; the level of the ground was raised and today the external walls of Castel Sant'Angelo are almost at the same level as the modern street which surrounds them.
The fortifications of Castel Sant'Angelo towards the river were modified in the late XIXth century to make room for lungotevere, the street along the Tiber; those inland have been less affected by changes; Bastione S. Luca was built by Pope Alexander VI and it was just slightly modified in the positioning of cannon by Pope Pius IV and by Pope Urban VIII; the moat was filled with water, but after Pope Pius IV built a new curtain of walls its space was used for warehouses and barracks.
Bastione S. Marco was also built by Pope Alexander VI, but it was more substantially modified by Pope Pius IV: below the battlements and near the ground level it has openings for firing on the enemy (the image used as background for this page shows a detail of its sentry box).
In the final scene of Tosca, an opera by Gioacchino Puccini based on a drama by Victorien Sardou, the heroine jumps from the ramparts of Castel Sant'Angelo and falls to her death, when she discovers that her lover Cavaradossi was actually killed during what she thought was a mock execution. Usually the scene is set on the terrace of Castel Sant'Angelo under the vigilant eye of the gigantic bronze statue of St. Michael and Tosca can easily jump down from here. As a matter of fact executions took place in a much less evocative location: a small courtyard in the north-eastern corner of the castle. In general executions in Papal Rome were carried out in public (read a description of an execution by Charles Dickens), but sensitive ones were dealt with in a more secret way behind the walls of Castel Sant'Angelo.
Pope Alexander VI, before becoming pope held as cardinal various positions in the Roman Curia; in particular he supervised the construction of many fortresses in northern Latium; he had therefore a direct knowledge of the needs of a garrison; in Castel Sant'Angelo he built cisterns to store water and oil, but the fulfilment of practical needs was always associated with works of art; the well was very finely decorated and the semicircular wall around the well was painted and used as a background for theatre performances.
Pope Paul III was mainly concerned with providing the popes with an appropriate residence in Castel Sant'Angelo, rather than in improving the fortifications of the building; the papal apartment includes some richly decorated halls and a loggia designed by Raffaello da Montelupo and painted by Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta. Pope Paul III took the initial steps towards the reformation of the Roman Church, yet he was a man of the Renaissance and the subjects painted by Girolamo Siciolante were void of devotional intent.
Cappelle del Castello
Castel Sant'Angelo was used for centuries as a special prison where the minimal rights of the inmates were forgone. In 1773 Pope Clement XIV abolished the Order of the Jesuits; Lorenzo Ricci, the Superior General of the Order, was imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo where he was kept for more than two years until his death; he was never accused of specific offences or brought to a court. A chapel on the ground floor provided religious comfort to those sentenced to death.
It is generally thought that Pope Nicholas III had the idea of using a stretch of the medieval walls surrounding the Vatican as a corridore (corridor) linking Palazzo Apostolico to Castel Sant'Angelo. The new walls built by Pope Pius IV after 1562 made useless the medieval walls yet the pope preferred to retain them because of the corridor. Over time they were called Passetto (small passage) because this was their only remaining purpose.
Pope Pius IV made several openings in the medieval walls to allow easy passage between Rione Borgo and its addition, a strip of land between the old and the new walls: each side of each opening was decorated with a slightly different coat of arms of the pope; because his heraldic symbol was identical to those of Pope Leo X and Pope Clement VII, the coats of arms bear the name of the pope.
Dan Brown set one of the final episodes of his novel Angels and Demons in Passetto; you may wish to read some remarks on the accuracy of the novel.
The development of Borgo Pio, the addition to Rione Borgo, was an early case of insider trading. When the relatives of Pope Pius IV knew that he was planning to build new walls, they rushed to buy the land which would have been included in the city and then they resold it in small plots, with an enormous gain.
Excerpts from Giuseppe Vasi 1761 Itinerary related to this page:
Next plate in Book 1: Map of the Walls of Rome Next step in Day 8 itinerary Casino Sacchetti |
