Marina De Franceschini, Genoese archaeologist and independent researcher, will present her books on the Pantheon and Castel Sant'Angelo, which talk about architecture and fascinating magic illuminations.

These extraordinary buildings were designed to last forever, in the 2nd century AD, without computers and without algorithms. No architect today would be able to build something like that with the technology and materials of the time.
But the Romans had time, patience and a great constructive wisdom; today there is still so much to learn from them.

The two books talk about nineteen centuries of events that seem like a novel, there so are many characters involved, such as the emperor Hadrian and the greatest popes of the Renaissance. Their stories are intertwined with those of the city of Rome starting in the 2nd century AD up to the present day: art, architecture and beauty, sieges by the barbarians, plundering, looting and finally the rediscovery and transformation into a church or museum.

The Pantheon, whose construction started in 114 AD, still has the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. It s transformation into a church in 609 AD saved it from plundering or destruction. It was studied and drawn by the greatest artists of the Renaissance such as Palladio and Raphael, who was buried there 500 years ago.
Marina De Franceschini discovered and describes in her book the incredible Arc and Square of Light which are seen only twice a year and had a precise symbolic meaning.

Castel Sant'Angelo was originally the Mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian, built in 130 AD: a grandiose dynastic tomb decorated with gilded bronze peacocks, colossal sculptures and precious marbles.
In the Middle Ages it was transformed into a fortress and papal residence. The greatest artists and architects of the Renaissance worked there, called by the popes to decorate their apartments and design the fortifications.
The author discovered spectacular Rectangles of Light in the Burial Chamber, the starting point to propose a new reconstruction of the Mausoleum at the time of Hadrian and to unveil its hidden symbolic meaning.

Together with the Mausoleum, Emperor Hadrian built the Aelius Bridge to reach it, where the legendary apparition of the Archangel Michael occurred, announcing the end of the plague in 590 AD.
Also in this case the book tells forgotten events such as the rediscovery and destruction of the Roman original paving of the bridge. It also explains the skillful design of the arches of the bridge and of the riverbed, the result of the hydraulic art learned from the Etruscans.

The Pantheon and Castel Sant'Angelo will therefore be seen in a new light.