We are preparing the translation in English language of the book
on Castel Sant’Angelo which was very successful in its Italian edition.
It traces the thousand-year history of the grandiose Mausoleum of Emperor
Hadrian, built starting from 130 AD as a new dynastic tomb on the right bank
of the Tiber. In the Burial Hall (Hall of the Urns) was the red porphyry sarcophagus
of the emperor Hadrian and the empress Sabina was buried. In late antiquity it was
sacked several times by barbarians and stripped of its decorations and priceless
treasures.
The book recounts its rebirth in the Christian era, with the legendary
appearance of the Archangel Michael who put an end to the plague of 590 AD.
In the Middle Ages it was transformed into Castel Sant'Angelo, the impregnable
fortress where the popes took refuge during the sieges of the Landsknechts or
the French.
The book shows the splendor of the papal apartments:
over the centuries each pope wanted to enrich and expand them, calling some
of the greatest artists of the Renaissance to design them: Antonio da Sangallo,
Michelangelo, Sallustio Peruzzi. The frescoes were entrusted to Pinturicchio
and Raphael's pupils such as Luzio Romano and Perin del Vaga.
Finally,
it reconstructs the ancient appearance of the Aelius Bridge and tells of
its rediscovery and partial demolition at the end of the Nineteenth century.
It proposes a new and unprecedented reconstruction of the Mausoleum and reveals
the hidden symbolic meaning of its extraordinary architecture and of the burial
hall, which was its central core.
The book reveals the very essence
of Imperial Power, thanks to the magic illuminations discovered with Archaeoastronomy:
they were linked to emperor Hadrian depicted as Sol Invictus driving the Quadriga
of the Sun.