The Aelius Bridge was built in 130 AD by Emperor Hadrian as a monumental access to his Mausoleum. Around 400 AD it changed its name and became St. Peter's Bridge, because it was the main connection between the center of Rome and St. Peter's Basilica, where thousands of people went on pilgrimage.

In 590, after the legendary apparition of the Archangel Michael who put an end to the terrible plague, it became Ponte Sant'Angelo and the Mausoleum took the name of Castel Sant'Angelo.

In the year 1300 Pope Boniface VIII announced the first Jubilee in history, and thousands of pilgrims went to Rome. Dante Alighieri also went to Rome on that occasion, and in all likelihood he was among the pilgrims who crossed the bridge.
There were so many of them that it was decided to erect a barrier to create two parallel corridors, one for each direction.

In the XVIII canto of the Inferno, Dante and Virgil visit the first Bolgia, where they see the ranks of pimps and seducers proceeding in opposite and parallel directions.
Dante compares them to the two lines of sinners who crossed the Sant'Angelo bridge during the Jubilee of 1300:
«…as the Romans, due to the large army, / in the year of the jubilee, up the bridge / have the people pass in a cultured way, / that on one side everyone faces / towards the castle and goes to Saint Peter; / from the other they go towards the mountain...».

During the Jubilee of 1450 there was a very serious accident on the Sant'Angelo bridge, due to excessive crowding: hundreds of people died there. Discover more about the thousand-year history of the Castle and its bridge reading our new book: «Castel Sant'Angelo. Mausoleo di Adriano. Architettura e Luce».