Built around 123 A.D. as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian and his family, Castel Sant'Angelo has had an atypical destiny. While all the other Roman monuments were swept away, reduced to ruins, or used as “quarries” to be recycled into new, modern buildings, Castel Sant'Angelo – through an uninterrupted series of developments and transformations that seem to slip into each other with seamlessly continuity – accompanies almost two thousand years of the fate and history of Rome. Its proximity to Saint Peter's Basilica, plus its strategic position at the north entrance of the city and its closed and imposing body, made Castel Sant'Angelo center of political interests From funerary monument to fortified outpost, from dark and terrible dungeon and prison during the Risorgimento to splendid Renaissance residence and now to a museum, Castel Sant'Angelo with its solemn, strong walls and sumptuously frescoed rooms embodies the history of the Eternal City, inextricably linking past and present.