Event
Date: 2024/06/19
ROME. CASTEL SANT'ANGELO. THE MAGIC ILLUMINATIONS OF THE SUMMER SOLSTICE.
Only in the week of the Summer Solstice (from 19 to 24 June) in the Burial Hall of Hadrian's Mausoleum, today’s Castel Sant'Angelo, there are special illuminations which had a precise symbolic meaning.
The Burial Chamber has three niches on the east, west and north sides, for the tombs of emperor Hadrian, his wife Sabina and probably Aelius Caesar, the designated heir who died before them.
The Sun enters through the two window-tunnels that open into the vault of the Hall, creating Rectangles of Light in each of the three niches.
The west niche is illuminated in the morning, at 8.30am before opening hours.
The central north niche was illuminated twice, at 10:00 and 16:00, but the rectangle today hits the masonry walkway that crosses it and therefore can no longer be seen.
Finally, the east niche is perfectly centered by the rectangle of light just before 5pm. The rectangle is divided in two by the shadow of the statue of the Archangel Michael which is located outside, right in front of the window.
The large window-tunnels from which the light enters open high up into the Cortile del Pozzo and the Cortile dell'Angelo, and were designed to capture the sun's rays only on those days. The openings also in the floor of the Courtyards were designed for this purpose, transforming them into "death traps" protected by grates and railings to prevent visitors from falling into them.
The illuminations that appear only during the days of the Summer Solstice were a sacred luminous signal of the favorable presence of the divinity, which in this case was the emperor Hadrian himself, deified after his death. It seems that he was depicted as Sol Invictus driving the Quadriga of the Sun that crowned the Temple at the top of the Mausoleum.
The symbolic meaning of these magic illuminations, linked to the celebration and legitimation of imperial power, is revealed in the new book by Marina De Franceschini and Giuseppe Veneziano «Castel Sant'Angelo. Hadrian's Mausoleum. Architecture and Light", which retraces the thousand-year history of the Mausoleum and proposes a new reconstruction of its ancient appearance.
The Burial Chamber was built with blocks of travertine and tuff and was completely cladded with precious marbles, of which a small fragment of pavonazzetto remains. The floor was in white Luni marble (Carrara marble).
A red porphyry sarcophagus was found in the Burial Chamber, the basin of which was reused for the tomb of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II (973-983) and was destroyed in a fire. Only the lid remains, which in the 17th century was transformed into a baptismal font by Carlo Fontana, and today is in St. Peter's Basilica.