From a guest house located in the areas of Trastevere, Aurelia and Prati, you can easily reach the Olympic stadium in Rome and some of the most important monuments of the eternal city, such as the Castel Sant'Angelo, which was built by the Emperor Hadrian, who wanted it as his mausoleum.
During the following centuries it had been often used as a prison: inside this castle many important people have been trialed, like the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was sentenced to death for heresy.
At Campo de 'Fiori, the square where he was executed (the only square in Rome without churches), now you can admire a beautiful statue of the thinker who died without betraying his beliefs, and who invited us to follow his heroic example with these touching words: "There will come a day when man will wake up from oblivion and will finally understand who he really is and to he who has given the reins of his life, to a misleading , fallacious mind, that makes him and keeps him a slave ... man has no limits and when he will realize this, he will be free also in this world. "
Beatrice Cenci was also imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo and executed at the age of 22 for patricide. The story of the young noblewoman has inspired many artists, including Guido Reni and Caravaggio, who was present on the day of her beheading and was so impressed, so he created one of his greatest masterpieces recalling the scene, "Judith and Holofernes". The piece is exhibited at Palazzo Barberini.
The story of Beatrice Cenci has become part of common imagery and Roman legends: there is one, quite disturbing, which says that the ghost of the young woman roams around the rooms of Castel Sant'Angelo carrying his own head the day of her death, right near the place where she was killed.
