The Rooms Where It Happened

The Church of Sant’andrea della Valle, where Cesare Angelotti hides after escaping from the Castel Sant’Angelo in Tosca’s Act I, was built between 1591 and 1665. Like many churches, its floor plan is in the shape of a cross. The long portion of the cross (known as the “nave”) has chapels on either side. As was typical in the large churches and cathedrals of Europe, the decor and appointments for these side chapels were financed by noble families. In the world of Tosca, Angelotti’s ancestors helped pay for the church’s construction, and his in-laws, the Attavantis, funded one of the chapels. The church still stands to this day and boasts the second largest dome in Rome after St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Palazzo Farnese, where Scarpia interrogates Cavaradossi in Act II, was built for the Farnese family, one of the most powerful clans of Renaissance Italy. (In 1534, for instance, Alessandro Farnese became Pope Paul III; one of his major claims to fame was excommunicating the English king Henry VIII in 1538.) The building’s main architect was Antonio da Sangallo, who began work on the palace in 1514; after Sangallo’s death, it was continued by Michelangelo. Due to the convoluted laws of inheri­tance among noble families, the palace became the property of the Bourbon family of Naples in the 18th century. Since 1935, it has been the seat of the French embassy in Rome.

The Castel Sant’angelo, an imposing building looming over the banks of the Tiber river, was built in the second century C.E. as a mauso­leum for the Roman emperor Hadrian (76–139). After the fall of the Roman Empire, its (almost) impenetrable walls were repurposed: Beginning in the ninth century, it was used by popes as a safe haven when Rome was under siege. In the 16th century, Popes Alexander VI and Paul III (the Farnese pope mentioned previously) installed luxury private apartments in the fortress, and Pope Sixtus V used it as a treasury. Its cellar was used as a prison, and, as such, it held many notable enemies of the Inquisition—including Galileo Galilei. When Napoleon’s troops took Rome in 1798, the Castel Sant’Angelo was overrun for the first time in its history. When the Royalists retook the city the following year, it held many supporters of the Napoleonic republic, including Tosca’s fictional characters of Cesare Angelotti and later Mario Cavaradossi. The structure’s name, which means “Castle of the Holy Angel,” comes from the imposing statue of the Archangel Michael on its roof, clearly visible in the Met production’s set for Act III.