Visit Castel Sant'Angelo and Villa Farnesina in Rome: stunning frescoes, and tales of love of popes and emperors

A visit to the disruptive architecture of Castel Sant'Angelo, a giant sitting on the banks of the Tiber, is a must for Rome enthusiastic: it has been continuously inhabited for almost 2000 years of history, and it shows surprising evidences of the transformations suffered.

Delve into its bowels, reach the internal burial chamber of the Mausoleum built by Emperor Hadrian in the II century A.D. for its ashes placed in the heart of the structure (which obviously no one had access to for centuries). Reach the upper levels, discover how the popes of the Middle Ages made a fortified stronghold, quickly reachable in cases of danger from the Vatican Palaces through the famous elevated corridor, the Passetto.

Go up to the rooms - some finely frescoed - of the attic, built for the Renaissance popes by the best architects of the time. But the castle was also the place of torture and death, from prisons to the Shooting Court, where atrocious executions took place.

 The last destination is the Terrace of the Angel with an incomparable view of the Vatican and Rome.

 Villa Farnesina is one of the hidden gems of Rome, one of the most beautiful and best-preserved Renaissance villas in Italy: upon entering you'll have the impression of going back in time as if the original owners are in the next room.

Discover in our tour its elegant architecture, with high and elegantly decorated ceilings. Here worked the greatest artists of the Renaissance, including Raphael, the author of the fresco of the mythical nymph Galatea that you can admire in the Loggia of Galatea.

Get to know the banker Agostino Chigi, the wealthiest one in Europe at the beginning of the 16th century, known as the banker of the popes for his substantial funding to the Holy See, who commissioned the construction of Villa Farnesina, and who lived there with his beloved Francesca, the beautiful courtesan of humble origins. The Villa Farnesina became the setting of their sumptuous wedding - the most famous of the century, a splendour of gold and silver, in the presence of artists, princes and cardinals of that time, including the pope - celebrated in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche, whose fresco represents the great history of love of antiquity, a kind of ancient Cinderella.

At the end of the tour, you will get a new perception of history and its tortuous paths which connect the past with the present, that’s a point of arrival and of transit for the future.