The most heavily fortified refuge in the history of the popes was originally built as a tomb...
It stands on the bank of the Tiber in Rome, a massive stone cylinder rising above the river, and for centuries it was the safest place in the city. When enemies marched on Rome, the pope did not stay in the Vatican. He fled here, across a secret elevated passage built into the city wall, and shut himself behind walls that had been standing since the age of the Caesars.
But it was not built for any of that.
Around 135 AD, emperor Hadrian commissioned it as a mausoleum for himself and his family. It was completed in 139, a year after his death, and his ashes were placed inside, along with those of the emperors who followed him, until Caracalla in the third century.
For a time it was the tallest building in Rome...
Then the empire fell, and the building began its second life. In the fifth century, its majestic walls and commanding position over the river made it a natural fortress, and it was absorbed into the defences of the city.
Its name changed after the year 590, when, according to legend, Pope Gregory the Great led a procession through a plague-stricken Rome and saw the Archangel Michael appear above the old tomb, sheathing his sword — a sign that the plague was ending. From then on, it was called the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Castle of the Holy Angel.
Over the following centuries it became almost everything a building can be. A fortress. A papal residence with frescoed Renaissance apartments. A treasury. A prison, whose cells held the condemned, and whose execution courtyard became the setting for the final act of Puccini's Tosca. Today it is a museum.
It has watched Rome rise, fall, and rise again for nearly nineteen centuries.
Hadrian built it so that he would not be forgotten after his death. He could not have imagined that the forgetting would never come and that his tomb would outlive his empire, his religion, and his entire world, and still be standing, full of visitors, two thousand years later...
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Parenti d'Italia
e megastipendi
------------------
Sorelle
Compagni
Nipoti
Figlie e figli
Generi
e chi più ne può piu ne metta.
Ma sta cazzara non diceva che con lei no amichettismo?
Esiste un nuovo partito in Italia, si chiama #ANM.
Ha sedi in tutta Italia e un frontman che buca lo schermo... Mi chiedo però con che coraggio il 24 marzo, terminato il #referendum, certi magistrati potranno tornare a dirsi "super partes"...
Così il Presidente @avvbenedetto oggi alla convention organizzata da @forza_italia #SìSepara #SìVotaSì
Perché quando sale il prezzo del petrolio l’effetto sulla benzina è immediato e non il contrario? Il vodcast 3 Fattori risponde ampiamente alla domanda, eccone intanto un estratto ➡️ https://t.co/X7dDjSI6Aq
Mamma di #Domenico: "In tanti vogliono donarmi soldi per mostrarmi la loro vicinanza, io vi chiedo di non donare a me, DONATE ALL'ASSOCIAZIONE A.I.D.O. (Associazione Italiana per la Donazione di Organi)." 🫂❤️
#Napoli#Giustizia#StoriediGiustizia
Dì la verità: tutti sui social parlano di #separazionedellecarriere e tu non hai ancora capito di che si tratta?
Tranquillo, ci pensano i ragazzi della @fleinaudi a spiegarti i punti principali della riforma.
🗳️Il 22 e il 23 marzo vota sì per una #giustizia più giusta!
"La morte – se naturale – è uno degli atti più benefici e attesi. Ci riporta nella natura".
Oggi nel 2004 moriva il gastronomo ed enologo #LuigiVeronelli.
#29novembre.