The “Passetto” is an 800-meter corridor that connects the Vatican to Castel Sant’Angelo, an imposing fortress built over the tomb of Emperor Hadrian, on the banks of the Tiber River.
The “Passetto”, a walled corridor that connects the Vatican to the Roman fortress of Castel Sant’Angelo, constituting a military watchtower and a possible escape route for popes over the centuries, will now be open to the public.
“We are truly happy to return a fundamental piece to Rome of its ancient and recent history”, celebrated Daniela Porro, director of archeology, at Monday’s inauguration.
This corridor, usually closed to the public, can now be visited thanks to a special guided tour programafter a restoration started in 2018 and which also allowed it to be adapted to people with reduced mobility.
Rome thus recovers a key place of its immeasurable history, precisely on the eve of Pope Francis inaugurating the Jubilee with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The “Passetto” is a 800-meter corridor that connects the Vatican to Castel Sant’Angeloan imposing fortress built over the tomb of Emperor Hadrian, on the banks of the Tiber River.
Yours origins date back to 547when the barbarian king Totila besieged Rome, but it was Pope Leo IV who, in 852, after the collapse of the empire, erected this five meter high fortification to defend the Holy See and its surroundings.
Although some scholars believe that the corridor that has survived to this day dates back to 1277, commissioned by Pope Nicholas III, the first to move the papal residence from the Palace of Saint John Lateran to the Vatican.
In any case, the “Passetto” was used by popes to control their surroundings or to take your prisoners to the dungeons of Castel Sant’Angelo, as in the famous case of Beatrice Cenci, a noblewoman and popular heroine who crossed it in chains before being executed in 1599 for the murder of her heartless father.
But, above all, this wall provided the popes with a quick and discreet escape route in case of attack (the popes reigned in Rome of the Papal States until the fall of the Papal States in 1870 and their subsequent integration into the newly born Italian State).
One of the sovereigns who had to cross the “Passetto” was the Pope Alexander VI, known as Rodrigo Borgia, who took refuge in the heights of the fortress after the invasion of Rome by Charles VIII of France.
“Kick-off of Rome”
But the most memorable event occurred in the sad “Kick-off of Rome”when the city was razed by the troops of Charles I of Spain due to Clement VII’s support for rival France.
It is said that the Pope had to run down the hallwaycovered by a black cloth to prevent his white clothes from giving him away, while Charles I’s German militia fired from below (some bullets can still be seen in the wall).
Clement VII narrowly escaped thanks to the intervention of the Swiss Guardalthough many of its soldiers were massacred. Of a garrison of 189 soldiers, only 42 survived the attack on May 6, 1527. Since then, every year, the new guards are inaugurated on the same day by the Pope of the time.
This papal escape remained in the city’s imagination, and even a Lansquenete, an imperial militiaman, left writing on the invaded house of banker Agostino Chigi: “Why shouldn’t I laugh? We made the Pope run”graffitied on a fresco in the palace.
Roman jokes
But the “Passetto” is also object of numerous Roman jokes: Since it was used by Pope Borgia to reach his lovers in the castle, it is said that crossing it 77 times – about 60 kilometers – restores men’s lost virility.
The unusual opening of this wall begins with a explanatory projectionbefore the stern gaze of the bust of one of the most hated popes, the Inquisitor Paul IV, whose statue ended up in the river after his death in 1555.
Visitors can now physically walk along this wall to a tower near the Vatican colonnade. From there, a gate stops the walk, marking the beginning of another country: the Vatican City Statea minimal reminiscence of the ancient and extinct pontifical empire.
