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 Hall of the Burial 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.